The Problem with Asking Pastors for Advice

Throughout my life I have found myself in great need of advice from family, friends, and the clergy. I have always found that my family has given me the best advice. However, I have that added benefit of my father being a pastor and also my best friend.

Some of the best advice I have ever gotten was from Jim Wilson. It went like this.

Me: I have problem “X”.

Jim: That’s sin.

Me: What do I do?

Jim: Stop it.

Me: How?

Jim: Pray and repent.

That pretty much sums up every conversation I have had with Jim Wilson and even though I only had a half dozen conversations with him they all had a life changing effect.

You see, the problem with asking pastors advice is that they can’t tell you anything positive. You are a sinner in need of grace and so are they. They can’t prescribe you a dose of something to ease the pain. They can’t step in there and repent for you. They can’t tell you what an oracle prophecies in order to know your fate and how to possibly avoid it. We need to flee to God for refuge. This mean that we need to run and running makes you tired and hurts the next morning especially when you have been hiding in a corner for years causing you muscles to atrophy. Refuge implies that there is turbulence in your current place. You are running from a war zone into a refuge. That isn’t fun. You might lose friends or get scared half way there and cower behind some sand bags.

Flee we must and with great faith that the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the same lord that saw the Israelites through the desert, will get us to this refuge and greet us like the Father greets all prodigal sons and daughters. A pastor cannot help you with this.

I don’t think a lot of pastors try to help you with this. I think that far more people asking for advice do expect pastors to help them with this. A pastor might say, “It’s going to be ok”, but he’s not referring the place where you currently find yourself. He’s referring to where he hope you will end up.

Hebrews 6:17-20 (ESV)

"So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."