From “Ask Someone Older Than You” by Marshall Segal, twenty-something staff writer at Desiring God Ministries; posted August 15, 2018 at: www.desiringGod.org
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When your next major decision comes — what house to buy, where to go school, who to marry — do the wise and unexpected thing: Ask someone older than you.
Most people in America, for instance, get married today without getting serious counsel. They meet each other, go on a few dates, get more serious, decide they want to get married, then tell people they’re getting married. They may keep a couple close friends up to date through the process, but they barely have a category for “counsel” — much less counsel from someone older. So, they wed without guidance. And according to Proverbs 11:14, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls.” Many marriages fall the same way.
“Without counsel plans fail” (Proverbs 15:22), and not only wedding plans. Do you want to take the wrong job, or buy the wrong house, or join the wrong church? Then ignore the godly people in your life who made those decisions years ago (and have seen many others do so).
But if you want to marry well, choose well, and commit well, then ask someone older than you.
A BIBLE STORY ON SEEKING COUNSEL
Consider King Rehoboam as a case study in refusing good counsel. Unlike many today, Rehoboam did seek guidance from his elders, but how he handled their wisdom is a warning to any of us. If we never ask someone older than us, we’re warmly inviting adversity, affliction, and even disaster. But even when we do ask, subtle (or obvious) opportunities arise to despise wisdom. Rehoboam teaches us how not to seek counsel.
1. Ask someone older than you.
Rehoboam started well: “[He] took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, ‘How do you advise me to answer this people?’” (1 Kings 12:6). When we are confronted with a difficult or complicated decision, one aspect of wisdom is to ask “the old men” (or women).
Many of us don’t even think to ask for counsel. We just do the best we can with what we have and know on our own. Even those of us who do ask for counsel often neglect to ask someone older than us. We ask our peers, typically those experiencing the same dilemmas and making the same decisions, and with the same shortage of life experience. Our friends know us best, and they’re most immediately familiar with our stage of life, so we assume they must be the best people to ask. But age and experience have a place in the pursuit of wisdom. Job says, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12). So, ask someone with (many) more days than you.
2. Don’t make up your mind beforehand.
When you do ask someone older for counsel, resist the impulse to make up your mind beforehand. The older men advised Rehoboam, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever” (1 Kings 12:7). Not only is the counsel wise, but it also benefits Rehoboam. If, as king, you strive to serve the needs of the people and lessen the burdens on them, they will never stop serving you.
“But [Rehoboam] abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him” (1 Kings 12:8). When the old men gave Rehoboam counsel he didn’t like, he rejected it and retreated to his friends. He wasn’t really looking for counsel; he was looking for approval. And if we’re only looking for approval, wise counsel will fall on deaf ears. If you only receive counsel when it agrees with you, you’re not really receiving counsel. When you go to others older than you, fight to keep your mind genuinely open to what they have to say.
3. If they disagree with your direction, seek to be persuaded.
So, if someone older than you disagrees with you, should you just do what they say? Maybe. But not always. Rehoboam wasn’t necessarily wrong to disagree with his counselors, but he was unwise to disregard their counsel so flippantly and arrogantly. Instead of listening well, pressing into their seasoned perspective, asking good questions, and seeking to understand, Rehoboam just dismissed them and took an easier path to approval: his peers. If someone older, who manifestly loves you, disagrees with you, take a default posture of humility and openness, genuinely seeking to be persuaded. “You who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5). Don’t just tuck humility in your pocket in case you need it in the conversation. Clothe yourself in humility, because God gives grace to the humble — to those gladly willing to admit that they might be wrong. (continued…)
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