Preventing Grace
I am delighted this morning to have Kit, who blogs at Pepper in Transition, talking about the giving and receiving of advice. Kit is awesome in her own right but is kind of eclipsed right now by the incredible big eyes of her baby who must somehow stepped out of the pages of the Lord of the Rings. Also, she’s been carrying him around on her back all Synod which is arrestingly adrobs…..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like so many other trains of thought, I’m not really sure when this one snuck into my head, but nevertheless it has joined the jammed rush hour subway mess that is my mental state. Despite the tangle of half-finished grocery lists, projects, and chores all screaming for attention… not to mention my six month old son literally screaming for my attention, I have managed to cut corners to be able to explore this very important train of thought:
Many young adults (even young adult Christians) are utterly incapable of receiving or seeking advice.
I feel like such an old person writing that. Bah! Young people today just don’t take advice! I would love to hate on my fellow millennials, but for once I have to admit that this is one way in which we haven’t screwed up the world. It was like that when we found it. Since when have “young people” ever been great at taking advice? I mean Adam and Eve certainly did not heed God’s command and while a command is different from advice, it nevertheless opened up the deep undercurrent of foolishness that runs in us and through us. The same rejection of wisdom, the very same foolishness, crops up like weeds throughout the Old Testament. Where more modern stories, found in our books and movies, tell tales of young people being the only ones with enough sense and courage to save the world, God has to go and tell us of how our forefathers were silly fools, never heading words of life. It can make you wince because you feel the reverberations in your own heart; your own foolishness is echoed in ancient stories. Every time a foreign wife is taken, a household god allowed in, a cowardly flight from a superficially strong enemy made, a prophet rejected, or yet another stupid asherah pole erected… it reflects our own insanely annoying (and deadly) obstinance.
Yet I think I have stumbled on a dirty little secret: “old people” aren’t all great at taking advice either; there are just fewer people that are older to offer advice. Some of the generally more mature population have learned from bruises and bumps of life and do reach the funny tipping point where they are sanctified enough to know they are foolish and thus seek wisdom. The fortunate ones arrive at that humbling moment when there are still wiser people to be found.
This all cropped up as I found myself on the edge of my anniversary. For some reason the memory of an old conversation floated to the top of my very scattered brain: It was some time in the hectic (and dramatic) months before I got married and I had complained to my then fiance about some married couple I didn’t think were good role models. I was probably just blurting out whatever popped into my head and I recall being taken aback when he grabbed onto whatever mutterings were coming out. He pointed out that even if I didn’t think so-and-so were good role models, they were married. That meant they had more experience as a married couple… and the fact that they had any experience whatsoever meant they has us beat. They hadn’t gotten a divorce and whoever it was (I honestly don’t recall), it’s not like one of them had been in a coma the length of their marriage. He said that he didn’t want to emulate all aspects of their marriage, but no matter how long he and I would eventually be married, they would always be more experienced. That was something to respect and something that called for acknowledgement that they clearly were doing something right. -Maybe not all things, but some things at least.
His response felt like I had been running and was suddenly stuck in hot tar. I tried to jerk forward, wrench myself free of this conversation, but he cornered me. As much as I complained and threw out cheap distraction arguments, I couldn’t avoid the quite undesirable conclusion: he was right. Now I admire him for it. -Not the being right part. He is right a frustratingly frequent amount of the time. No, what I found admirable was his openness to acknowledge someone’s success, even ways in which they surpass him. Even when he didn’t want to be exactly like someone, he knew he could still learn from what they had done right.
I was recently at a bridal shower where there was an advice jar. Almost every single slip of paper said something to the effect of, “Don’t go to bed angry.” The bride was privately annoyed that the advice jar had been an activity and I didn’t really blame her. She and I sort of brushed it off afterwards and I have no idea where the papers got tucked away to, off in some purgatory closet where they can never be thrown away because, well that’s just rude, yet will probably never be lovingly reviewed by her and her husband. Later when I told my husband about it, he quipped, “Yeah. Such terrible advice: don’t go to bed angry. It’s not like that’s in the Bible or anything.”
To be fair, the advice jar is less cute and fun if everyone writes the same darn thing. While some meant it, I think it probably is true that many thoughtlessly wrote down the first cliche that came to mind so they could get back to chatting and sipping champagne from cute glasses. Despite the lack of cuteness or personal touch to the worn out cliche that’s fraying on the edges… my husband once again was right. Though cliche, “don’t go to bed angry,” is good advice. I mean why do we end up with cliches, something used again and again and again and again until true words ring with over familiarity and feel meaningless? It’s because there is nothing new under the sun. Our hearts bend towards the same mistakes, the same sins, and so the warnings against them or the solutions to them never change.
Frankly us young adult Christians are so bad at taking advice partly because of an arrogance we possess, the very same that grew in the generations before us: an arrogance in thinking that we have heard it all before. Sure we may have heard, but have we understood? Have we contemplated, deeply meditated? If that takes longer than selecting a good emoji or cannot be encompassed in a gif, probably not. We see it, we click “like,” because the words generally sound good, and then we scroll on. Sometimes the “Christian” part makes us even more dangerous: our parent’s aren’t Christians so clearly they know absolutely nothing. It’s a miracle we’re even literate. Or perhaps our parents aren’t good enough Christians, part of a vague Christian culture that’s fading away to popular progressive culture and, like a wave receding from the shore, the crumbling gaps of knowledge and shoddy theology that has always been beneath the glittering surface, are revealed. Disillusionment rushes in and to some extent disappointment chips away at the trust we once held for those who protected us for so many years. In both cases it becomes clear that our parents cannot protect us from all pitfalls and perhaps we walk away a little too quickly, shut down conversations a little too fast. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying these would be sources of sound counsel to seek out for all matters, but there’s usually more to learn from that we are inclined to give credit for. Like how to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. Anyway, God has certainly used worse people (or donkeys) as his mouthpiece.
The other side to that arrogance isn’t entirely our own fault. Part of why we are so horrid at taking advice is because we shy away from those who offer it, afraid of anger or worse, nagging, if we do not follow it to a T. The reason I say it isn’t entirely our fault is because offering advice is a fine art that many do not understand. When that golden, shining moment arrives, where a sacred privilege is offered, to be able to speak into a life… so many people muck it up by screaming out a command or giving heavy handed instructions. Gentle good counsel is so very rare to find. It’s like a soft whisper during a heavy metal concert. There’s a reason why the phrase is, “offer advice,” and not “shove marching orders into someone’s face.”
In that way, our foolishness is made a bit more understandable, deserving some amount of sympathy, yet the foolishness itself remains unpardonable. Foolishness is still foolishness. It is still death. Clinging to it because people are incapable of giving advice appropriately is still hard hearted and self destructive. Even if every single person around you cannot offer advice that has been thoroughly weighed and considered for you specifically, there is still much to be learned. There are subtle ways to glean wisdom by observing the more experienced. Anyway, we are promised that scripture contains wisdom for us and through the Holy Spirit we are able to “enjoy” the benefits of advice that has actually been thoroughly weighed and considered for us specifically. Let’s face it, it is rarely enjoyable to be convicted. Even if the counsel sought is not on a matter of something that leads to sin, but in fact a case of choosing between two neutral decisions, it still isn’t exactly fun to trust in the resources God has put before us.
Then on the flip side, when advice is sought and it is clear to the perfectly sanctified advice giver what simply must be done, there is the unbearable pressure of compliance. A relationship cannot hang, dangling and twisting in the wind, precariously depending on one person doing whatever the other person thinks needs to be done. Offering advice, even accepting advice, is all the tip of the ice berg. The majority of the work, of the labor, the fuel of midnight prayers, is genuinely caring for each other. Oh for the sake of all that is good, please do not use this as an excuse to whip out the vague, “The greatest of these is love!” or, “I care more about so-and-so than his/her sin.” No, to gloss over the inadvisable, to passively condone the slope of sin that you see someone trudging down is the worst kind of foolishness. Jesus makes it pretty clear with some choice words about a millstone what should be done to those who lead his sheep astray.
Of course, it wasn’t until I was 23 or so that I found older adults that I could accept advice from. At first I needed to look at the entire person and find them overall exceptional to even consider taking them seriously. Clearly I was an overall exceptional fool. The first time I realized that I actually valued someone’s counsel was quite a shock. -Solomon I believe has a few thoughts for his son that may apply to me in that respect. I had just had a conversation with my future in-laws about something, and then hours later found myself mulling over their thoughts about whatever it was I should do. Clearly I have a terrible memory for details. Whatever it was, I remember that in the end I decided to stick with my original course of action, but was perplexed at how much time I spent weighing their input. In that odd moment it became clear that was what advice was, not the clear marching orders I had received growing up in a military household. A few wise words, communicated in a gentle way, made my impatient, rash self actually pause. Over the years I have noticed that my father-in-law is particularly talented at making clear what his counsel is, and at the same time making clear that it is merely counsel. He is not ordering; he has no intention of living someone else’s life for them. That has been such a blessing over the course of my marriage. I know that I can let him into my life and it will still be that: my life.
Of course it isn’t the same when you let Jesus into your life. You do that and he’ll take over as Lord of All Creation. But Jesus isn’t my father-in-law, and it’s kind of Jesus’ rightful place to take over my life. One might say it would be foolishness of the highest degree to fight that. In the mean time, we get to join the struggle of generations past, trying to hash out our lives, measuring them against scripture, and seeing mistakes repeated coupled with the beauty of unchanging love and forgiveness. As the young, we can revel in the growing pains of creating our own lives. -While it lasts anyway. Soon we will be the old and if all this 80’s nostalgia that I see on Netflix indicates anything, it won’t be long until we are decrepit. Once the 90’s are retro, I know I’m in real trouble. For everyone whose childhood is already being capitalized upon for its “retro” vibe, congratulations: You are “old” and get to revel in the growing pains of learning how to share your hard earned wisdom and experience. If all else fails, just tell us we should read the Bible more; nine times out of ten you’ll be right.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In