where are we looking for advice?

The thoughts of the righteous are just; the counsels of the wicked are deceitful. (Proverbs 12:5)

With the internet there is so much information and advice to be found at our fingertips!  We just visit Google and with a few words and the click of a button we are able to find information on most any topic we could imagine.  In many ways this is an incredible blessing.  Sometimes I wonder how we all managed before the advent of the internet!  The information that my husband and I have gleaned from various websites while renovating our Civil War home in Boston has been incredibly helpful.  Everything from information on historic masonry to putting in spiral stair cases (yes, we need to replace a treacherous attic stairway).  I’m not sure how we would be doing this otherwise!  And in the last few days our almost five year old daughter, who is curious about so many things, asked me about volcanoes and then the Grand Canyon.  Looking at the ipad on the couch the two of us were able to read about volcanoes and watch a few short documentaries and a few days later at the dining room table we were able to watch footage of the Grand Canyon taken from an airplane.  Amazing!

As amazing as this is though, and it is pretty amazing, there are pitfalls that we Christians must be aware of as we engage in the culture around us, even online.  And I’m not talking about the obvious ones like porn and online gambling; though those are certainly pitfalls to be avoided.  This one is more subtle and acceptable even, but can be just as damaging.  It is the bad counsel and worldly wisdom that can be found on blogs and websites.  Often it creeps its way into places we don’t expect it, or influences us without us even knowing it is there.  I noticed it today as I was doing some research on healthy living.  I was returning to a holistic doctor’s website where I had received some helpful information in the past and ended up spending time reading entries on their blog.  Don’t get me wrong, there certainly was good stuff there to be found, and I will probably return in the future, but I realized after being there for a while that spiritual wisdom being dispensed in several of the posts was anything but truthful.  That if I return in the future, I should probably be a more discerning reader, even avoid reading posts on topics where I know I would be given deceitful advice.

How often do we find ourselves mindlessly clicking on articles or over to pages to read the “counsel” of people we know are not Godly.  They are credentialed we might say, I’m not easily influenced, I’m just curious.  It may even seem harmlessly disconnected from spirituality having to do with parenting, priorities, marriage, work relationships, even health and beauty.  But lets be careful to heed Scripture’s warning that for the Christian all things are spiritual, from the way we dress ourselves to the way we raise our kids to the way we interact with the world around us to the way we browse the internet.  I’m not saying that we should only read or take advice from other Christians, but I am saying that we should be very, very careful about the materials we engage our minds and hearts with.  We are told to guard our hearts (for more on that you can read this post) and the things that we read and think affect them more than we often realize!  As we engage online let’s be mindful of this Proverb and that for the Christian worldly advice has another less pleasant name, deceitful counsel.