Hosea 4:12a – They ask a piece of wood for advice! They think a stick can tell them the future! (NLT)

Advice is prevalent, but where we get it from is essential. I was working for a very difficult boss. She was manipulative, moody, and deceptive, and could be downright mean. Soon after beginning this job, I wondered if I'd made the right decision. I didn't ask advice from anyone about what I should do. Had I, I might have heard, "Tell her to take the job and shove it," or "You have a family to take care of. Sometimes we have to do what we don't particularly enjoy." In the final analysis, I took the advice that God gave me through prayer and stayed put for five years.

Hosea prophesied to hard-headed people who were faithless, unkind, sexually immoral, criminal, violent, alcoholic, and buck-passers. The saddest thing was that when they needed advice, they asked their wooden idols. God they disregarded.

Advice is plentiful. Good advice is scarce. I can go to a bookstore and find advice everywhere on any question that I have. Or I can pick up my smart phone, computer, or iPad, and ask Google. I could also go to the nearest bar, where the bartender would be more than happy to offer his opinion, or to the local barbershop, where I could get the same.

Many of the places where I could seek advice would be no better than the piece of wood Hosea's audience consulted. If it's a book that I consult, it should offer sound Christian doctrine or, at the very least, be based on biblical principles. If it's a website, I should read the About section, and if it's people that I consult, they should be mature Christians with life experience and knowledge.

The best advice doesn't come from wood sources but from praying and searching God's Word. Others may lead me astray — inadvertently or on purpose — but God never will. What He says in His Word — or through other godly sources — can always be trusted.

Don't get your advice from wood sources. Go to God.

Prayer: Father, we thank You that the advice that You give will always be just what we need. Amen.

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About the author:

Martin Wiles <mandmwiles@gmail.com>
Greenwood, South Carolina, USA
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