One bit of wisdom years of experience bring involves who you ask for advice. When I was younger, I listened to advice from friends and peers, mostly people my age. I asked because they were close, and I didn’t know enough to know who to ask. But as I got older, I learned the value to consulting knowledgable people.

An issue with my car? I go to a mechanic. Money? A financial expert. Health? I call the doctor. I know enough to (mostly) avoid unsolicited advice from lousy sources.

Isaiah scolded the people around him for their choice of advisors. When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction…If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

Looking to mediums and spiritists is like a teenager asking another teenager if he should jump off a bridge. Why not—what could go wrong? It’s foolish, but it takes hitting the bottom of the creek a few times to work the foolish out of us.

Isaiah pointed the people of Judah to the words of God. Avoid the mutterings of dead counsel, the ramblings of the foolish—turn instead to the light of dawn.

Today I face the same choice. No lack of opinion points me in every direction possible. But my first choice, the one solid place to base my life decisions and practices remains the living word of God’s instruction.

Isaiah 8 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Medienstürmer