They can sound so convincing.
We live in a day and age when we want to hear things that are life affirming. We want to hear we can do it. We want to hear those words that let us soar and believe we are capable of great things.
We can then feel a lot of sympathy for the dude Ahab. Here he is a king of a country in an alliance with neighbours who have not worked together in years. Here they are together with a tough battle ahead of them. The king of the neighbours – Jehoshaphat – just wants to ensure that they have blessings on their side before they go into the royal rumble.
So can you blame the guy if he’s getting advice from 400 homies telling him that he is the man and the win is in the bag, why do you need to listen to anyone else?
The story doesn’t end so well for Ahab. Indeed you could have seen it coming because of Ahab’s tendency to listen to the wrong voices.
Can you imagine living in a world where you hear exactly what you want to hear? Only words that are soft, soothing and emboldening. Only those words that tell you there’s nothing you can’t do. You’re the champ and there ain’t no stopping you now. Sometimes it’s good to have godly consultants around you to put things into their proper perspective.
Sometimes it pays to heed the attention when you’re self-inflated opinion is carrying you dangerously away from reality. Sometime it pays to listen to those who tell you it’s in your best interests to humble yourself before you’re humbled. Sometimes it’s good to not seek to be the centre of attention, to be the greatest, to claim all the rights and goodies that are due to you. Sometimes its fitting to make yourself less than others, so that they can be helped in their own struggles. Sometimes it’s just plainly not about you getting it all.
Those home truths are hard to swallow in a self-indulgent world that wants you to seek your best life now with all the trinkets that come with it. Those are not the only hard home truths that we seek to avoid. We can somewhat cocoon ourselves with those voices that tease and ease our itching ears. The problem being, the more we cocoon ourselves, the more out of touch we become with that which gives us life. The more out of touch we become to that – is it any wonder some of us face a similar fate to old Ahab.
In a world with so many voices – it pays to seek to listen to the right ones, whatever painful advice they offer.
(Photo by Ben White on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 