The Test of Advice

“I told you so!”

“Nobody asked me!”

Have you ever heard these statements or said them yourself? When you ask advice, you are likely to hear one or both! In all of your consultation with others, you can either “cover your bases” and stroke your ego, or you can ask advice to get the right answer. You know what it is like when someone asks you just so he can “cover all his bases”, don’t you? Or when someone asks you just to boost his ego?

In I Chronicles 13, David repeated a mistake that he knew that Saul had made. David seemed to be doing right regarding the ark, but he asked advice from everyone under the sun except for the One Who shined on them. He said in verse 2, “Let us send abroad unto our brethren every where . . . also to the priests and Levites. . . .” Everyone was in agreement about it, and as verse 4 puts it, “for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.”

Did David ask advice? Yes. It even sounds noble and caring that he asked every single person what he thought. Although he asked for advice, did David receive the right answer? No! The end result is the death of a man named Uzza for touching the ark. Uzza tried to steady the ark on the “new cart” they were using to bring it back with. He meant well, but meaning well and doing well are two different things.

David knew what he had done and what was needed in verse 12: “And David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?” He asked everyone except God. It was not wrong to ask advice-we should ask advice. David failed to ask the very One Who knew the right answer!