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Stop Asking People Who Have Never Been Where You’re Going for Directions
The late World-renowned evangelist, Dr. Billy Graham, went to a small town, in the early part of his ministry to preach a sermon.
Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a little boy for directions to the post office in the town, and the boy gave him the right direction.
After the boy had done that, Dr. Graham thanked him and said to him: “If you’ll come to the Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven.”
Can you guess how the boy responded to that offer?
His response was: “I don’t think I’ll be there. You don’t even know your way to the post office.”
Do you blame the little boy for responding the way he did?
I don’t blame him because it was naturally unusual for someone who didn’t know the way to the common post office to tell him how to get to heaven, where nobody has visited and returned.
Guess what! This story was a joke told by someone several years ago, yet it aptly illustrates Glennon Doyle’s quote, “Stop Asking People Who Have Never Been Where You’re Going for Directions.”
The little boy turned down Dr. Graham’s offer because he didn’t want to accept directions from someone who have never been where he talked about.
Unlike that little boy, many people are fond of asking for directions from people who have never been where they are going.
Let me give you three common examples.
Example #1
Everywhere you go today, you would find newspapers, magazines, and books, and hear on radio and television programmes that are specially dedicated to love, marriage, sex and relationships tips.
The Internet is not an exception. There are hundreds of thousands of Websites specially dedicated to such topics.
Unfortunately, most of the people who claim to be experts on love, marriage, sex and relationship matters are mere charlatans and impostors.
One of those so-called and celebrated relationships and marriage counsellors is known to have records of failed marriages, yet people consult her for advice on relationships and marriage.
How can someone who failed several times in her marriage and who’s yet to correct her mistake advise other people on relationships and marriage?
Isn’t that funny and absurd?
Why should you trust such a sensitive part of your life into the care of such a person? Can she give what she doesn’t have?
Stop believing marriage, sex and relationships tips that come from people whose life is suspect and whose advice is based on their head knowledge rather than the truth.
If you cannot find someone who really has the experience and knowledge about relationships, love, sex, and marriage, simply pick up a copy of the Holy Bible and discover the truth about these topics in it.
This is because God is the Originator and the Creator of marriage.
For you to understand and enjoy marriage, you have to know and practice what He says about love, marriage, sex and other relationship issues.
Any love, marriage, sex and relationship advice that is not based on the teachings of the Bible is nothing but a timed bomb, which must explode in a matter of time.
Learn to be curious and suspicious of whatever you read or hear about love, relationships, sex and marriage topics until you have confirmed what the Bible says about them.
Always be like the Berean Christians, who usually search and study their Bibles after they had been taught the word of God in their church – Acts 17:11.
Example #2
A former Internet marketing fellow student of mine and I met recently after we lost contact about ten years ago.
While discussing and exchanging pleasantries, I asked whether he was still in digital marketing and he replied: “No!”
Before I could ask why he was no longer in the business, he volunteered: “I invested so much on e-Books, video tutorials, and software to learn digital marketing, but I couldn’t make a dime online, so I decided to quit.”
Upon further inquiry, I discovered that all the e-Books, videos, and software that he bought were a mere rehash of the original works of some successful digital marketers.
The unscrupulous people who placed those materials on the Internet for sale to their unsuspecting victims did so to make quick cash for themselves, and they succeeded.
Apart from my former fellow Internet marketing student, there are still hundreds of thousands of other budding digital marketers, across the world, who patronize quacks, with the hope of earning a living online.
How can someone who has not made a dime on the Internet advise, teach, or show other people how to make money and succeed online?
Is that possible?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Inasmuch as there are plenty of quacks on the Internet, who pretend to be successful Netpreneurs, there are also people who have really succeeded in doing business online, just as Helen Keller observed that “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.”
All you need to discover the real nuggets of digital marketing and those behind it is for you to shine your eyes and ask the right questions.
Example #3
After enjoying his bachelorhood with city girls, Japhet left the city girls and married a girl, Phina, from his own village.
When a friend of his asked why he preferred a village girl in marriage to a city girl, his response was: “Most city girls are not good for marriage because they are wild, corrupt and spoilt compared to their village counterparts. In addition to that, city girls, from my observation, are tough to control in marriage.”
Unfortunately for Japhet, his marriage did not last up to one calendar year; it crashed on its ninth month, resulting in each of them going their separate ways.
Why did their divorce happen so quickly?
Find out the answer to this question below.
After Japhet had completed the necessary formalities, concerning his marriage, his wife, Phina, thereafter joined him in the city, where he lived and worked at a brewery.
Japhet lived in one of the four apartments in his compound.
One of the four apartments in his compound was occupied by three unmarried whores.
The nature of their job entailed them sleeping throughout the day and going out at night to busy hotels and shopping malls to hustle for male clients.
Each time Japhet left for work, in the morning, his wife, Phina, would move into those ladies’ apartments and remain there until it was almost the time her husband would return from work.
The trouble between the couple started when Japhet discovered that his wife, Phina, was a very good friend to those ladies of easy virtue.
When he accosted his wife about her strange relationship with those ladies, his wife told him that she liked those ladies because they usually offer her good pieces of advice.
“Oh, my God,” exclaimed Japhet at his wife’s funny defence. “Why would you seek or accept advice from unmarried women who have no experience with marriage, more so when they are prostitutes?”
After two days of misunderstanding and without talking to each other, the couple came together again and started living their everyday lives.
Phina promised her husband that she would sever her relationship with those night-work ladies, but she didn’t keep to her promise, not minding the possible consequences.
Her husband kept warning her against her attitude, but she wouldn’t listen.
Out of frustration and public criticism and after watching and waiting unsuccessfully for some time for his wife to turn a leaf, Japhet decidedly filed for a divorce and got a judgement to that effect.
In the words of Japhet, what kind of advice do you think unmarried ladies would offer a fully-fledged married woman, more so when they were whores?
Stop Asking People Who Have Never Been Where You’re Going for Directions
To conclude this article, I would like to advise you never to seek, ask, receive, or accept advice or counsel from ANYBODY who is not experienced, tested, and trusted in whatever you’re doing or intend to do.
Do also be like the little boy mentioned in the Evangelist Billy Graham’s joke, shared above.
Make it a habit not to seek or ask for directions from people who have never been where you’re going.
Doing so may complicate your situation or condition.
In case you do not know, people who are not experienced, tested, and trusted in what you’re doing or in what you intend to do, nor know the directions to where you’re going can be described as blind people.
In other words, anybody who does not have an idea about something you’re doing or asking for directions from people who have never been to where you’re going is like a blind man leading another blind man.
So, for you to ask somebody who doesn’t have an idea about what you’re doing, what you intend to do or where you’re going for an idea or directions is like a blind man leading a blind man.
Can a blind man lead a blind man?
Emphatically, NO!
“If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit,” says Jesus in the holy book of Matthew, Chapter 15, verse 14.
I know you wouldn’t like to fall into a pit.
Would you?
Of course, no!
So, stop asking people who have never been where you’re going for directions
Stop Asking People Who Have Never Been Where You’re Going for Directions. THE END.
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