Here a little...

I have been thinking lately that sometimes others don't need advice on how to change their lives, they need one small piece of scripture that will help them change their tomorrow. And then a little bit more the next day... and then a little more...
Isaiah 28:9&10 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line, her a little, and there a little:

Most people are inherently slow to change. Giving them loads of wisdom all at once overwhelms them and makes them revert back into what comes more naturally for them. I remember when Riky and I were on the verge of divorce. At first I was on autopilot and just went through the motions of normalcy. After a while I couldn't even do that. I would be standing in the bathroom with toothbrush in hand trying to remember if I had just brushed my teeth or if I needed to still. I actually told my friend Debie that I thought that I had a brain tumor. I honestly did, too. After my dad died, I started to research mourning a little bit. I found out that what I was going through when we were on the verge of divorce was the stages of mourning. That makes sense now, I was in mourning. Did I know that then? Not a chance. I didn't even have the skills to attempt to figure out what was wrong with me, I was too busy trying not to fall apart.

Riky and I scraped by narrowly escaping destruction. There have been 4 times in our 12 years that we were on the brink of divorce. Each and every time we had no one but ourselves and God(Which is not horrible, but we were so busy being angry and young in our Christian walk, that we didn't even want to turn to God for any answers, let alone know how). Of course, Satan was there and worldly people are always willing to give you their two cents, so the side for divorce was very vocal. But, on the side of righteousness there was no one who was willing to jump in and devote the time to helping us rebuild one tiny step at a time.

If someone had come in and bombarded us with a bunch of scripture and tons of information on how to repair our marriage, most likely we would have rebelled in our hearts toward that person and God. Surely we would not have turned to them again for advice.

A picture that comes to mind is:
A woman on the side of the road. Her car is stalled for some unknown reason. She is watching cars go by. Each car that she sees on the horizon causes a little flutter in her heart. "Maybe they can help me" she thinks.
The cars go by without even a flash of the brake lights. And another, and another.
She is starting to give up hope.
Finally, a van goes by. Brake lights flash. She watches as the van stops and then begins to back up.
"Someones going to help me," she thinks, excitedly. "Finally. Someone is here to help."
A woman gets out of the van. She walks up to the damsel in distress on the side of the road. So desperately in need of help.
The damsel is holding her breath in anticipation of being able to get assistance.
The woman from the van walks up with a smile and hands our damsel a book, then walks back to her van and drives away. Dumbfounded, she looks at the book in her hands "3,000 Ways to Troubleshoot a Stalled Vehicle"
Now, in her overwhelmed state, what do we expect her to do? Sit down in her van and turn to page one? Or chuck the entire book into the ditch and sit down and cry in defeat?

There is something to be said for tact. There is something to be said for timing. (There is more scripture that supports everything that I have stated above, but for the life of me I have drawn a blank. I am going to post this anyway and come back and edit it later when I find the references.)

I recently had a conversation with Mrs. Benton about another side of this same issue. She quoted Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine... Mrs. Benton said that you can usually discern between those who are ready and willing to listen to you and those who aren't. She said that she will answer questions with basic information, but she is not going to waste her time or her pearls of wisdom on someone who is not genuinely ready to hear what she could share with them. She doesn't want to discourage someone or add to their overwhelmed state, nor does she want to waste her time. She is a very wise woman.