Wasting Words

When you give someone advice, they will typically respond in one of four ways.

A. They will accept the advice and accept you.
They see your advice as wise and your intentions as good.

B. They will accept the advice and reject you.
They like the advice, but they don’t’ trust or appreciate you.

C. They will reject the advice and accept you.
They don’t trust your instinct this time, but are grateful generally grateful for your input.

D. They will reject your advice and reject you.
Not only do they discount your advice, they don’t trust you as a person.

Proverbs 9:8 says this “…don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you.
But correct the wise, and they will love you.” If you keep trying to correct people who can’t and won’t appreciate you, you’re only wasting your words. Sad as it is, some people can’t see common sense when it’s offered them on platter. These are the mockers, people who lack spiritual perspective.

The wise, on the other hand, accept the advice and grow in admiration for whoever offered it. So the foolish get stuck in a spiral of ever-increasing recklessness, but the wise compound their wisdom over time. When it comes to spiritual perspective, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Proverbs 9:9 says it this way “Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser.
Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more.”

If you think you already know it all, you’re closing yourself off to insight God knows you need. But if you approach every situation with a learning posture, a humble disposition, a hunger to expand your perspective, you’ll grow.

The choice is yours: you can be a stone or a sponge. You can absorb wisdom or deflect it. 
Learning is ultimately a pass/fail endeavor, you’re either teachable or you’re not.

Be teachable.

Life is richer when you believe there’s a lesson to be learned from every set of circumstances.

And the baseline for wisdom? It comes from understanding who God is, how God functions and what God cares about. All of our ideology is born out of our theology. 
Our view of God frames how we view the world, ourselves and the choices we make. If we think God is detached, impersonal and capricious- our decisions will likely be impulsive and self-serving. If we think God is absent, or non-existent, we’ll buck any potential spiritual perspective in favor of the immediate, the now, consequences be damned. But if God is infinite creator, omnipotent king and gracious redeemer, we might turn into self-starters, humble children and grateful sojourners on the road of life.

The foolish start with their own agenda. And just keep spinning into chaos.
The wise start their journey at the feet of God. And they just keep getting wiser.