My oldest son has been preparing to get his driver’s license. He’s had his learner’s permit for about a year now and he’s getting ready for his big driving test in December. The funny thing is that his siblings feel the need to tell him how to drive when they are in the car with him. They do this even though they are all much younger than him and have no idea how to actually drive a car.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous. I had to tell them to stop “coaching” their brother because when we’d come to a turn they’d yell out stuff like “Go now!” or “You’ve got it!” even when he clearly needed to wait to make the turn. I was afraid them yelling out instructions might actually prompt my son to react before he realized what was going on.
What was most interesting to me about the whole thing was that they felt this need to give their input even though they had never done it. I guess that’s just human nature. We tend to look at something and just assume that we could do it better. That’s why we have backseat drivers and armchair quarterbacks. It is, however, a very prideful and presumptuous position to take, especially when we are “commenting” on something we’ve never done.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that we can learn from anybody. I believe that we should be open to advice from accomplished and gifted people even if they have no direct experience in our field of endeavor. However, that advice should always come in the form of advice and not commands or dictates.
As a pastor, I often get asked for advice about areas that are beyond my experience. I learned a long time ago to be clear about how I respond to such requests. Apart from avoiding obvious sins, I would never assume to tell someone what they MUST do if I’ve never actually been in that situation. I usually just try to share what’s worked for me in some similar situation and then stress to the listener that they’ve got to figure out what works for them. The bottom line is that I know what’s worked for me but I also know that their mileage may vary.
We must resist the temptation to be experts about things we’ve never done.