JOIN USIt may be strange to say, but sometimes true, that we try to give advice to God himself. We read in the famous book of Job, the proverbial man who was rich and lost everything. He lost his wealth, family and health. His question was why? He could not understand.
His friends come and tell him it must be because he had sinned but he protested his innocence but could not understand why all this should happen to him. What wrong has he done? He bitterly complains but does not complain against God. He would very simply say God has given him and God has taken away.
But the question remained: Why should it be? Towards the end of the story we read that God appeared to him in a whirlwind and asked him a series of questions about natural phenomena: Were you there when I did all these and did I ask your suggestion?
The long and short of it is that Job is asked not to question God or try to give him advice. “Take everything as it comes. Do not try to advise me.”
St Paul also in his letter to the Romans in chapter 11.33-36 admires the way in which God seems to arrange everything. Who can be his adviser asks Paul; God knows what he is about and we need give him no advice.
But in practice, it happens sometimes in our life when we are in a quandary and do not know how to proceed. Here is a problem.
If we were to humbly ask God how to proceed and calmly think about it, consult knowledgeable people around and taking everything into consideration come to a decision, then it would indeed be fitting and God himself would have silently guided us.
But if on the contrary, we try to give advice to God and try to demand it of him that this should be so or that should be in this way or that, then we are overstepping and would soon come to grief.
So should we not desist from giving advice to God and accept all that comes as part of our human existence, as part of what humans have to face?
We are not living in a perfect world but a world that needs to be changed, transformed into a better place. God wants us to work with him, allowing him to take the lead. The wiseman is not a self-willed person but one who constantly tries to listen to what God tells him through the various events of his life.
It can be through anyone, young or old, man or woman, a child or an adult. It could be in sunshine or storm; it could be in rain or dry heat; it could be in this month or that; this day or that.
These do not matter. The only thing that matters is: what does God want? I will not advise him but listen to him and follow him.