Receiving or giving advice is not an easy task. In the following article we develop some fundamental pillars.
"The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice." Proverbs 12:15
To learn to listen we must first begin each day with our inner being.
A good person is not one who endlessly gives advice, but rather one who is able to listen attentively to personal needs and one's own needs first. In this way he will be able to surrender his own heart into the hands of the Lord.
The Holy Spirit is the fundamental source of guidance and illumination when it comes to reconnecting our own being with God.
If we want to listen to other people, we must be in constant preparation with the Heavenly Father.
"While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him." Matthew 27:19
We will be developing our empathy if we daily manage to connect from our deepest love with the Holy Spirit.
But at the same time such listening will be connecting us consciously with other people who approach us, asking for help.
It is useless to listen if we do not have a real record of our neighbor. A good way to check if our listening is efficient is by developing empathy, which will place us in the other person's point of view. In this way we will experience their problems as our own and we will be able to understand which path the Lord took in his journey in order to heal and move forward.
"Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue." Daniel 4:27
If you have to help someone or give advice, think first of how you would do it if it were you.
This is a good parameter to keep in mind, since we will never advise ourselves or ourselves in a way that could harm us. So passing all advice through the filter of the Holy Spirit and giving advice as if the problem were our own is something recommended, since we will always keep in mind the Faith and the Glory of God before speaking to someone in need.
"They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants." 1 Kings 12:7
If you have the Lord on your side, counsel only about what you personally experienced and know with the Father.
There is no need to invent fictitious stories or morals. We have a long way to go if we use these kinds of ideas with people close to us. We must always respond with the truth and with the Sacred Word.
There is no kind of advantage or moral superiority in answering something that we do not know or that we should simply consult with someone else.
Many times because of a wrongly given advice or someone who does not really understand our problem, we can deepen a conflict scenario.
"Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise. Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:20-21
If at the moment of speaking and connecting with God, we manage to remain humble, leaving aside the vanity that sometimes drives us, then we will really be making way for the sincere and true love of the Heavenly Father.