My Quarrel with Advice

I was asked to give my advice on a topic the other day by a friend. I was feeling pretty good about being asked what I thought. It fluffed my prideful feathers that someone valued my opinion. As I was clickity clacking away my thoughts on the keyboard to respond to my friend's need, I stopped in the middle of my sentence and could not type another letter. The word "advice" was projected on my minds eye as big as a wide screen movie could make it. The word separated into two words just like in grade school when you learn about syllables and use clapping to help you dissect the sounds. "Ad"...*clap*...."vice"...*clap*. So this got me to follow the rabbit and open my dictionary, which I must admit has had a little dust on it due to the busy schedule life can dictate and keep one away from one of the best tools in writing. I opened the crisp pages and easily found Ad. Ad\`ad\n: advertisement; well, that was simple enough, but didn't satisfy my curiosity as to why I was seeing this word so visually as if it was one of cute stickers you can apply as decoration to your walls. The next logical step was to look up advertisement: a public notice intended to advertise something, to inform, notify, to call to public attention in order to sell. Hmmm! I new idea was brewing in the foreshadows of my mind. I quickly looked up the word vice\ prep: in place of: succeeding, also a moral fault; esp. an immoral habit. So I put the two meanings together and formed a definition that may be obvious but I believe subtly becomes deluded in our every day conversations with friends and family.

I was not so quick to keep writing my flowery, smart answer to my friend and with my new found enlightenment, I wrote this instead, "I wish I had the answer to your dilemma, but I don't know what I can say to ease your pain, or to make circumstance better or that I am the best person to give you the answer you need to hear." I paused, getting ready to close my e-mail with as much encouragement as I could when this question presented itself and cemented the reason I was to keep my opinion to myself. "Who is it you first go to when you want to know what to do?" Easily this is answered in the majority as parents, best friends, maybe even pastors or clergy, and not a bad thing to do if wisdom is presented in their life, but let me take this one step further and ask, Why do we not go to the One source that truly has the correct, life-changing, pin-pointed, to the detail answer first; Our Creator, the one who knows us from the womb, Jesus, the one who experienced it all so the bridge of true relationship could be mended and we could walk across to be healed and helped and changed? (I know that was one long, run-on sentence) Sometimes we seek advice of others for human approval, for a way to plead our case, to be heard, all the while closing ourselves off from the Truth that will set us free. There are so many factors in why we run from the one thing that can save us, but those tiny factors add up to one whole, a condition of submission.
Before this post morphs into another sermon, I'll let you in on the definition that recently helped keep my tongue in check, my pride at bay and showed me how to truly love people the way God wants me to.
Advice : A call to attention in order to sell an idea or way in place of another.
And this is my "ad" "vice" to those who are asked for their advice, What is your motive, and the motive of the asker, whether you can determine it or not use it as an opportunity to point to the only One who can truly help, our loving Savior.