Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
If you are anything like me, sometimes it can be hard to take the advice of others—whether it's a well-to-do parent, the direction of a teacher, or even the voice of a friend we love. Sometimes when we get advice that we haven't asked for, we can view it as criticism.
The Bible speaks of the importance of getting good advice in life. One of those places comes from our Verse of the Day. It's Proverbs chapter 15, verse 22. "Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success."
Echo Chambers
Are you familiar with the idea of an echo chamber? It's this idea that we can find ourselves in spaces where our ideas aren't being challenged, and all we're hearing is confirmation bias about what we already believe. We probably find ourselves in these spots more often than we like to think about.
Let's be honest, I would say a majority of our digital interactions happen in exactly these sorts of places as we're scrolling on our feeds. All the algorithm is doing is learning about us—what we like, what we don't like, what we believe, what we feel. It pulls all of these things together to confirm all of those beliefs.
The Hidden Danger
Now, this can have some benefits for us. It allows us to connect with like-minded people. It allows us to learn more about philosophies that we already hold.
There can also be a hidden danger in this if we're not careful. It means that we're not being challenged to actually ask ourselves: Is what I believe true?
It's important to have a diversity of voices in our lives—voices that we can trust, that give us a more 360-degree view of the way that we're planning our lives.
My Personal Example
I'll give you an example. I'm really bad with this when it comes to my work. I'm the sort of person that if I know a project is coming up, I start laying the pieces down by myself. I start putting all the plans together, and I don't let anybody in. I don't want to see them see me messing around with all the parts, trying to figure out what looks good.
I keep them out until I feel like it's mostly complete. Then I will invite voices in. The problem is, it's too late. There are glaring holes in the plan that would have been caught way sooner. There would have been better ideas that could have been incorporated into it. It just all around would have been better if I had allowed more voices into the process.
Expanding My Circle
I'm working on doing better with that. But it's not just with my work life. I've realized how much my entire life is lacking in this area. That I have maybe one or two voices that I go to that are probably just going to tell me the thing that I already know they're going to say, and that's why I go to them.
I'm trying to find people that I can trust, but also differ in their thoughts and opinions so that I can take each of those pieces and map them out according to God's Word and see where He might use those voices to lead me.
Not Always Comfortable
It's not always comfortable. It can be difficult to be challenged in these moments. But the Word reminds us that this leads us into the paths of success.
My Invitation to You
I invite and challenge you to do this in your life. See where you've caught yourself in an echo chamber, where there are not enough voices speaking into your life, and bring them in. Don't blindly listen to them, but take each one, sit on it, reflect on it, and see where it points you in God's Word.
The more that we invite these voices into our lives, the more God is going to use them to lead us down that path of success.
