The Dangerous Gift of Giving Advice

Sometimes withholding words is wiser and better.

I’m the one who runs to fix every problem. It’s hard for me to sit with those in pain without trying to use my words as a bandage to their wounds. I want to step into their darkened world and hand them a lantern of hope. There was a time when I thought I was the perfect person to do that too; I had heard that every believer is equipped to instruct and counsel one another, and I believed that that was particularly true of me. I had great faith. I possessed much knowledge. I was well-read. I knew many Bible verses. If anyone could give advice, it was me.

Have you ever considered advice to be a dangerous gift? Tolkien seemed to think so. In The Fellowship of the Rings, we find this dialogue:

“And it is also said,” answered Frodo: “Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.”
“Is it indeed?” laughed Gildor. “Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”

In our influencer and social media culture, where anyone who knows how to wield the algorithms to amplify their voice, you don’t need gentleness, humility, wisdom, or even the right credentials to be an authoritative, advice-giving voice. Rather than actually gain knowledge on a subject, simply establish yourself as a thought leader through content creation. Or sign up for an MLM business and suddenly you’re a health expert on weight loss, nutrition, and skin care. Listen to a few podcasts and you’re now a professional theologian. Better yet: Experience something for a couple of months (like motherhood or marriage), and you’re now a well-educated person on said subject.

I say all of this not in pride but in great humility—because I sought to be one of these thought leaders.

The Drawing Lesson by Pierre Duval Le Camus (c. 1826)

Yet suffering became a school-teacher. Trials caused me to put a hand over my mouth. I doubted. I floundered. I became angry at God because I misunderstood God with my own poor theology I had spouted to others so boldly. But in the midst of all that, I also found myself at the receiving end of advice-giving, and my eyes were opened to the painful reality of all kinds of unguarded advice. I saw how the light I believed I was offering to those in pain was actually more blinding than enlightening. My words cut off circulation rather than heal wounds.

Through my suffering, God also sifted bad theology from me. I saw not only how much damage I had done to my own heart through gripping these wrong ideologies, but also how much harm I had caused others by giving them advice based on these wrong beliefs. Advice can truly be a dangerous gift.

There is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7 ESV). “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Prov. 25:11) and “when words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (10:19). There is a time when advice is needed. I seek advice and guidance on nearly every word I publish. When faced with life-altering decisions, I consult those wiser than me. But there are also times to be quiet and simply sit with those who are suffering, and times when our advice is only more senseless noise to the one who standing at a crossroad. It takes wisdom to know, which is only given from God through his Word and many well-ordered days.

Though our culture likes to scorn age, it can actually be a good thing for our minds. Age does this curious work where it adds wisdom, which in turn slows our tongues and cools our tempers so we don’t become as outraged as easily. Over time, God opens our eyes to see the nuances of lives around us which quickly erodes the walls we’ve built around our “facts.” He carries us through suffering in which we begin to see that the simple answers we had weren’t all that simple after all. He puts us in relationships with people who differ from us, and our hearts are widened to love those we disagree with and we learn to respond to them with respect.

I’m learning that it’s important to wait on our words to give them a chance to bear fruit. Before declaring the wonderful things we have learned through a season and how to cultivate goodness in these kinds of situations, let’s wait and see if beauty and goodness do in fact spring up from the seeds we’ve planted.

Job asked his friends, “Isn’t wisdom found with the elderly?” (12:12). It was meant to be an indictment against them—for though they were old, they still offered him unwise and unkind counsel. May we not be like Job’s friends whose age did not add wisdom, but let us be teachable under the fatherly care of God. Job’s friends needed to sit quietly with him in his pain and bear his burdens. Let’s take heed, as God presses us so often in his Word, to tame our tongues.

Let’s learn to fear our God, who brought us here and gave us salvation from our sins—in that fear, we will find wisdom, as we recognize the grace and kindness in which he has dealt with us, and strive to show the same to our fellow image bearer. Let’s be slow to speak, because wisdom is often found and best communicated with such careful treading, and our words will likely grow with age.

Tolkien must have thought often on this topic, for it comes up again in The Two Towers. The Ent, Treebeard (a magical, walking and talking tree), said, “[Entish] is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.” May we be like the Ents—taking a long time to say things, and only saying them if they are worth taking the time to say—and the elves, who seldom give unguarded advice.