Have You Pulled A Dog's Ears Lately?

By John Stallings


“That’s none of your business.” How often have you & I heard that statement made? How about this one; “if I’d wanted your opinion I’d have asked for it?” Let me interject right here; --- when people say this they really mean it.

Recently Juda & I watched the movie, Margaret, about the Queen of England. It dealt especially with the time period when Princess Diana was killed. Since she was no longer in the Royal family at the time of her death in a car wreck in Paris, the Queen & her husband didn’t want to leave their summer retreat to personally join the grief stricken millions in the London area. The upshot was that the newly elected & youngest ever Prime Minister Tony Blair had to engage in some expert arm twisting to get the Royals back to London for the sad occasion.

I had expected the movie to be somewhat stodgy but the tension between Blare & the Queen was totally engrossing. You were allowed to see & actually feel the acrimony the Queen had for Blair as he continued to cajole & seek to persuade her to not ignore this event. Blair was forced by virtue of his position & this historic event to walk into an area “Where angels fear to tread.” The phrase, “It’s none of your business” wasn’t uttered but the sentiment hovered just beneath the surface in every conversation between Blair & the Queen. I hadn’t realized how close the Royal family came to sticking their heels in the sand & refusing to dignify Diana’s death, nor the superb job young Tony Blair did in finally saving the Royals from themselves.

Sadly, Mr. Blair will leave office soon & I for one think the world will miss him. Maybe his stock is down for his early views on Iraq, but more than likely differences within his own party did him in. Nonetheless, he has been a stand up guy in a world of politicians who use focus groups to make their decisions.

Let’s talk about this thing called unsolicited advice & its perils.
Proverbs 26:17 says, --He that passeth by & meddeleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.

I’ve never tried picking a dog up by the ears but I can imagine what an awful response a person would get from the dog if they tried it. If the dog had any size, he’d without doubt do that person some real damage & if he was just a little pup, the pain would be so intense his squealing & howling would make it a very unpleasant experience to say the least. Either way it would be a very ugly scene & it’s very likely a doctor would be involved.

What is a person supposed to do? --To advise or not advise. It could be something as mundane as a co-worker with bad breath & body odor to a daughter-in-law who serves food half cooked. Or maybe it’s a person in church who spreads gossip like kids spread peanut butter. Here’s another important thing to remember if you’re a person who likes to “get your two cents” in; --People as a rule don’t take well to unsolicited advice. To put it a little stronger, most people have a strong aversion to it. But does that mean that we should never give it?

Here are some guidelines that will be helpful in deciding what to do if faced with a situation where we must make such a decision.

1. Pray,-- but don’t only pray,--- pray long and hard before you do it.

James 1:5 says; --If any man lacks wisdom let him ask of God. I remember back in the sixties when I was starting out as an evangelist. It was the big thing in those days for people in local churches to go to another individual with a “word” for them or sometimes a verse of scripture God had given to them to pass on the other person. Having the advantage of traveling nationally, I saw what was happening. Many people were passing off to others what God was trying to tell them. I would tell people to make sure when they felt compelled to give someone a “word” that it wasn’t something God was trying to say to them & they were rejecting it personally. We can always ask God to clarify His message for He knows for sure who the message is for. Ask Him.

2. Scope out the terrain & be sure your timing is right.
When we were raising our kids, they knew that ice cream was allowed but ice cream thirty minutes before a meal was not. If it involves a spouse, you’d want to make sure you didn’t open a can of worms at bedtime. Bad timing. The same would go for mealtimes or as soon as someone gets home from work. A fight on the way to church won’t work & certainly a fight in front of the children is a bad idea. It wouldn’t be advisable for a spouse to say, “You should have been kinder to your Dad when he was alive.” It’s a little too late to fix that isn’t it? When dad was alive that might have been good advice but the timing is all wrong now.

In scoping out the terrain, other relevant questions would be; is the wife going through PMS? Is the husbands head spinning because he had a run-in with his boss? Did your daughter just break-up with her boyfriend? Is the person ill? Ask yourself-would you want to hear what you’re about to offer? It’s not that we should deny that our advice needs to be given nor should we analyze an issue to death but we certainly should ask God’s guidance. Many a good word has been lost because of bad timing.

When a Christian Brother or sister is going through trouble, they are probably under satanic attack. In times like these we can be used as tools of the devil if we’re not careful. One of Satan’s delights when a person is undergoing an attack is to use the people close to them as accomplices to unwittingly compound their hurt. He did this with Adam & Eve & he did it by using those closest to Jesus to hurt him. He certainly did it with Job by using his wife & closest friends to give him all sorts of crazy advice. It’s a good thing Job didn’t take his wife’s advice to curse God & die, but instead chose to bless God & live.

3. Don’t make a habit out of telling someone how to run their life.

Sometimes rather than “straightening someone out” maybe we could just act as a sounding board. Maybe it would be better to help someone sort out their options. Maybe we can just listen, that’s a lost art these days. I have known people who had a word spoken to them about whom they should marry; they followed the advice & ended up divorced.

In Exodus 18:17-27, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro saw he was overburdened, so he came to Moses & advised him to seek out wise men within the camp to help & advise him. Moses was wise enough to heed his father-in-laws words. Although Jethro didn’t play a large role in Moses life this one word of wisdom to the great leader made him even more effective.

Now if we saw Jethro coming to Moses constantly with some complaint or suggestion, we’d quickly pick up on it & feel he must have had some control issues in his life. You & I can take a lesson from wise Jethro.

4. Ask yourself if it’s your place to offer advice.

Maybe there is someone closer in relationship that is better suited to speak to the individual. A parent, a spouse or maybe the person needs professional help. You may see the need but that doesn’t mean you should be the one to speak to it.

Tiger Woods may be in a slump & I may see it but that doesn’t make me qualified to offer him counsel. One reason among many would be that if I were ranked as a golfer, I’d be somewhere around the bottom 5,000 golfers in the world. See the point? If your burden is great enough, & you still feel checked about going to a person, maybe going to a pastor, spouse or parent to get them involved would be the answer. Then again, if God is making you aware because you are the one to go, you should go. Just be sure it’s God.

5. Does the situation merit your unsolicited advice?

I’ve learned that some things bother me that don’t bother God in the least- or the other person. Some things aren’t sin they’re style. They aren’t a trespass they’re an annoyance. They aren’t a matter of conviction but a transgression. Some people pronounce tomato different than I do. They say potato differently than I do. Some people play Rook in their church annex while other people would have a stroke if they saw a deck of cards near a church. If you don’t watch some people, they’ll stick their biscuit in gravy right at the table (heaven forbid.) The Bible is silent on some issues & we’d be wise to be silent there also. There have been times when unsolicited advice has saved a life & times when it’s ruined a life.

6. Limit what you say.

A lady in a church I pastored once called & asked if she could come over to the house & speak with my wife & me. I of course said yes. She arrived & sat down on the couch & pulled out a yellow legal pad & proceeded to read a list of grievances with the church & my pastoral style. After the first two or three things I stopped her. I told her that she’d made a terrible mistake to sit back for months making her list when she could have come sooner when it was only two or three things. My children came in from school while the lady was there & afterward they asked what in the world it was all about. They could feel an awful spirit permeating their home, brought by this woman. Even a child can sense a raunchy attitude.

The take-away lesson from that is; words of correction are strong medicine best given in small doses. Have you ever noticed when you get on an elevator that they have a weight limit posted? Even a modern elevator can only take so much. We human beings are the same & we all have our load- limits. We don’t want to be guilty of overloading an individual with our criticisms no matter how well meaning our intentions are.

7. Ask permission to speak.

Give the person an out. Don’t start by saying you have a word from God because then they have no way out. Ask them if the time is right or if they’d mind if you share something that’s on your heart. If a person indicates a desire to receive what you have to say it will be much easier. If they don’t grant permission they are telling you they won’t listen or heed what you have to say so you might as well save your breath. When you stop to think about it people are bombarded every day with free advice from every direction from Oprah to Dr, Phil & many people can be on “advice-overload.”

Another thing I’ve learned about giving advice in person or in letter form; the person you speak to will probably have something to say in response, so you’d better be sure you have heard from God & that your skin is thick enough to hear it.

You may remember that when Nathan went to David telling him “thou art the man” in regards to his sin with Bathsheba, David fell under deep conviction. But when Samuel confronted Saul about his sin in not destroying the Amalekites & all their livestock, Saul lied through his teeth even though he had the Amalakite king walking by his side. Saul was always so preoccupied & busy with self-justification it makes his life painful to read.

8. Analyze your motives.

Make sure you’re not wanting to get the other person “told.” Make sure you have their best interest at heart & you’ve prayed until your love-level is high. Are you seeking to bless or curse? Just to be safe, check your heart-felt motives before you go. Remember there is something about advice giving that can promote pride, & the moment you have a superior attitude shining through your ability to help another person will as a rule be nil.

9. Listen

James 1:19 tells us to be slow to speak & quick to listen. This is doubly true when we give advice. There is much you & I don’t know & the other person is in a good position to help us understand them. If you feel a person is unwilling to talk in some areas, let them lead to the areas they are open in & that way you’ll stay our of harms way. We earn the right to speak by listening.

We can all have a tendency to get preachy when giving advice. Don’t do it. Preaching is a powerful tool when done by one person to a group but it doesn’t work one-on-one. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get off the soap box, open it, take out the soap & wash our brother’s feet.

10. Properly discern the level of your relationship.
There are things you’d say to a close friend that you wouldn’t say to the butcher or the baker. A surface relationship won’t allow you to say things you’d say to someone who knows you well & visa versa. How long have you known the person? True relationships require time. Do you have their number on your speed dial?

A person who deigns to grab a dog by the ears had better be careful. So it is with speaking into another persons life. Proceed with great caution. Hopefully some of the truths in this article will be helpful. One thing is for certain, we all have our unique set of needs & concerns & we all come from different backgrounds with our own expectations, perceptions & fears. God can use each one of us if we remain humble & know that only Jesus has unlimited knowledge. We must at all times keep pointing people to Him.

As for receiving reproof, if it happens to you, it’s far better to hear it than to reject it. Thank God for it; for someone who cared enough to risk their neck to share it. If it’s inaccurate, you’ll live. But more times than not there’ll be some merit to it. I’ve been there & done that. So have you.

Take it. Think on it. Pray over it. Be grateful for it.


John