Obedience: The hallmark of wisdom
“Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days.” -Solomon
We say experience is the best teacher, but that’s only because we’ve already thrown out advice.
The stove example
A kid touches a hot stove. Burned. He won’t do that again. That sure taught him, didn’t it?
Well, sure it did. But that’s not the intelligent way to learn. That’s the idiotic way. The intelligent way would have been for him just to listen to his mom who told him not to touch it in the first place.
The smart way isn’t to learn from your failures. That just happens to be the way we usually learn. The smart way is to learn from other people’s failures. Or even better, learn from their successes.
The consulting example
Consulting businesses love high-ticket clients. Profits aside, these clients are more motivated to follow through with the advice they’re given since they paid a lot to get the advice. That translates to higher success rates for the clients and stronger referrals for the business.
In effect, paying more money for the advice creates a stronger incentive for the clients to act intelligently. That’s fascinating to me: the smart ones are the ones who actually follow the advice.
The reading example
I read a lot. Often as I’m reading along, the author will ask me to do something, like make a list of some sort. The author will even write, “If you read the rest of this, it’ll spoil the effect. So go ahead right now and make that list. I’ll wait.” That’s written right into the text.
But do I make a list?
Nah, I keep reading. I want to find out why the author’s asking me to do this. I read ahead, spoil the affect, and then go on with whatever I’m doing (maybe even just continue reading). By percentage, I rarely apply anything I read.
Does this sound familiar?
Why we don’t obey
The problem is that we trust ourselves more than other people. Around 80% of us think we have above average intelligence, which is impossible. But it’s human nature to assume that.
As Christians, though, we should know better. Knowledge is knowing what’s right, but wisdom is doing it. We know this.
You and I can wait around to learn on our own, but that’s the hard way. The wise way is to find people who’re smarter than us, even if it’s just in one particular area, and do what they say.
The wisest people, like Solomon, are those who know who to trust, follow, and obey.
How this relates to serving
- It’s how our relationship with God works. When you and I obey Him by actually doing what He says, we’re wiser and more able to accomplish what He wants us to accomplish, which happens to be serving others.
- When you trust someone else and follow through with what they say, you’re honoring them. It’s a way to serve all by itself.
- Finally, if you’re obeying wise people who have the goal to serve others, then you’ll end up accomplishing a lot more than if you’d tried to learn on your own. That’s why I love studying biographies of Christian leaders. They’ve been there, and if I can follow their advice, I can cut out a lot of the learning curve.
Once again, we say experience is the best teacher, but that’s because we ignore advice. The wise choice is really to quit ignoring the good advice and obey it.
Serving Suggestions:
(1) Think of some situations in your own life where you’ve been given advice but you’ve put off the follow-through. Perhaps make a list. 
How could you start obeying wise advice instead of trying to learn on your own?
(2) Do you have an example of a time when, looking back, you realize that someone gave you some excellent advice but you ignored it… only to learn the same lesson the hard way? Share in the comments.