October 29, 2013
Seeking Advice
An advice columnist recently got a letter from a
mother of three young children - middle school and elementary age. Her question
wasn’t about whether or not to get a divorce, but rather when to get a
divorce. The children, and apparently the husband, had no inkling there theirs
was not a happy family. However, the mother was miserable and didn’t think she
could wait 10 years until the kids went off to college. She wondered if the children
would handle the divorce better now, or when they got to high school. Obviously
the mother was looking for divorce support from a non-invested party. I was
reminded of King Rehoboam who consulted the elders that had served his father
Solomon on how to rule the people. Rejecting their advice, however, he sought
the counsel of the young men he’d grown up with. It is amazing how we seek
advice from those we think will agree with our plans. “Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry
out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my
Spirit, heaping sin upon sin… (Isaiah 30:1 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----A life is a collision between self and reality. Neither are entirely flexible. And both are somewhat brittle. We bring to the collision our desires, and try to impress them upon reality. That is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, what we desire more often is. And when we see portions of reality that will be fractured by the pressure of our desires, then it is often not advice we seek, but permission.
-----Certainly we have a right, even a need, to bend reality somewhat by expressing ourselves into its shape. But the fact of the need does not validate every available option. The effects of the bend does. If they are goodness for everyone and everything effected, then an option is valid and will effect an impression of Christ. Even if its effects might be neutral, an option might be valid. But when an option is detrimental to other people or situations, that is a sacrifice of reality for a mere expression of the self. And when the expression is as stark as the ending and/or forced changing of deeply intertwined relationships, the sacrifice becomes very costly indeed, and the impression very anti-Christ.
-----Sorting out whether an action might be constructive or destructive is the purpose of advisors. But when a heart sequesters itself away in a closet for pondering issues, reality should quake in its boots. Every time the heart will come out of the closet having concocted desires and ambitions out of tune with its surroundings. Battles will occur, and the normal adjustments of getting along will become death in parts and pieces at first, chunks and masses later. And any use of advisors will be only for acquiring approval.
-----Rarely does a situation have an option full of goodness for everyone, including the actor. Most all options of any situation are admixtures of good and bad. Even the heart desiring to effect good for all can become quite conflicted between one choice which might harm this but benefit that, or the other harming that and benefiting this. And having few options of total good for all even presses some good folks into passive lifestyles. So advisors are for helping us sort facts from fictions and truths from biases for finding the best cost/benefit option on one hand, and for encouraging us to actually do it, on the other. When we get well practiced, we begin letting the realities of our surroundings shape our desires and ambitions somewhat, too, always choosing to pay the lesser cost of a piece of the old man, rather than the greater cost of damaging the new one. At that point, the divorce can be scrapped.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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