How well do you follow instructions? How well do you follow advice? How well do you follow guidance? Are you willing to listen to someone more experienced? Will you listen and learn from God through His Word?
We’ve all been there. We were young and thought we knew what we were doing. Or, we went into a job thinking we were the expert in the field. Or, we were given good advice and decided to ignore it. Regardless of the reason behind it, we made a bad decision and learned a very hard lesson the hard way.
Our experiences feed our understanding. As we experience more in this life, we gain knowledge. The combination of know experiences, knowledge, and understanding should lead us to making wiser decisions. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.
We can and should apply this same principle to our spiritual well-being. By listening to good guidance, we can avoid hard lessons. By reading and following God’s instructions, we avoid making bad decisions.
For those of us who are asking, “where is this good advice?”, it is throughout the Bible. Yet, if we are looking for one particular book in which to start, read through Proverbs. However, to see all the guidance God has to offer, we need to read the entire Bible and rely on the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a key player in our understanding and gaining of wisdom. Since He lives within us, we are accompanied by God wherever we go and have access to God’s advice for every decision. It is our choice to ask, listen, and adhere to His guidance.
As our Scripture passage for today states, we are to listen and follow God’s guidance. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves. I don’t believe we want to purposely deceive ourselves, which means we need to consciously focus on God’s guidance. This may mean we can’t take the easy way out of a situation, but we will be thankful later that we handled it God’s way.
I pray we all seek God’s guidance. I pray we read His word. I pray each of us will choose to follow God’s word and avoid foolishness. Read your Bible. Seek understanding. Listen for God’s guidance. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Avoid foolishness. Live a better life.
James 1:22-24 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
Marty Pressey 