The Tricky Terrain of Giving Advice

(Rebroadcast from January 2022)

 

Are you able to listen to someone sharing a problem without trying to fix it? In other words, can you just listen, or are you formulating a solution as you listen, waiting to blurt it out as soon as the other person stops talking?

Listening to someone tell you that they’re about to make an unwise decision is really hard. We may want to try to talk the person out of their plans, but we know that by inserting ourselves like this, we could end up creating tension in the relationship. By saying nothing, it may seem like we’re agreeing, but if we speak the truth in love, we may get slapped into submission by a verbal rejection. Unsolicited advice is a field of land mines.

We can usually sense when a conversation is taking a sharp turn, and this can easily happen if we swerve into giving advice without having been asked. Unsolicited advice is easy to give but hard to take. If you've ever had someone deliver an analysis about your life that you never requested, you know how this lands on the ears.

What happens if we say something that then things blow up and we get chewed out? How can we sit by and watch someone running straight for the edge of an unseen cliff that we have in full view? Giving advice is tricky terrain. Let’s consider three things to help us discern when to speak and when to be silent.

Sister Friends by Francie Taylor

Ponder the Path-31-Day Devotional by Francie Taylor

Rough Patches: Temporary Marital Tensions by Francie Taylor

Minerals for the Mind-A Study of Romans 12 by Kathy Ashley

Mirror Talk-A Journey from Hurt to Healing by Marianne Barnett

This Liberty of Yours by Tim Zacharias

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