Who Are You Listening To?

This is one of my favorite pictures of my granddaughter.  She is watching me teach the women’s Monday night Bible study, and her mom said she sat and watched the majority of it.  My prayer is that-

1. She will always pay attention to the Word of God being taught.
2. She will always pay attention to her Grandma.

When my daughter was growing up, my one of my deepest desires as a parent was that she would always believe the things I told her that were followed by this:

Take my word for it.

“It” is anything from the importance of being a discerning reader to never, ever drinking milk immediately after eating cranberry sauce.   This would also include always stop trimming your bangs before you think they are short enough, those pants will never shrink to fit you and it is a sad fact that not everything deep fried in batter tastes good.  Take my word for it.

Of course, taking someone’s word for something can be a dangerous proposition; one must always consider the source.  That friend who has his own parking space at the emergency room because he’s there so often?  When that guy says “It will be fine, take my word for it” you would do well to NOT take his word.  The friend you tried seven times to nominate for the show “What Not to Wear” is not the one you take shopping with you when you want fashion advice.  My favorite quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is this:

“Learn from the mistakes of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

That’s true.  Take my word for it.

Advice is a funny thing.  It is defined as “recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct.”  Alice, of Wonderland and my hairstyle doppelganger, is quoted as saying “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”  Even less, it often seems, do we follow the advice given to us by others.   

Obviously, the most important words of advice we should take are the ones that are given to us by God.  I love that it is so easy to know what God wants from us.  I love less having to make the choices involved in taking His advice, but I really haven’t found any advice that is better than His. 

It’s sad when we ask and do not receive.  You've done it.  I've done it. Like Alice, I've given myself very good advice and not followed it.  Even worse, I've been given very good advice from God and not followed it.  It’s one thing to not know a source of good advice and wander through life, it’s another to have the Source of all that is true and right and set it aside. 

"Pride leads to conflict: those who take advice are wise." Proverbs 13:10

 Take His word for it. 

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