Being Open MindedSample

Being open minded on methods & ideas  

Prov 20:18 – “Plans are established by seeking advice; so if you wage war, obtain guidance”

In the portion that we read today, Moses is simply overwhelmed with cases that he is to give judgments on. His father-in-law Jethro,  offers him some wise fatherly advice. Moses was God’s own “Project Manager” for operation “Exodus”.  He really needn’t have taken inputs from a Midianite Father-in-law.  But we find the wisdom and humility of Moses in listening to it and the concept of Biblical delegation was born.

Many of us, as we get older, get into an inflexible mode. We get used to a certain way of doing things and so we are not open to suggestions of how things can be done better or more efficiently. In the 1970s and 80s there was a term called the “Not Invented Here (NIH)” syndrome, which meant “this is the way we do things around here. So…” or “This wont work”. This attitude gets more pronounced, when this suggestion comes from someone who is younger than us,  or hierarchically lower than us in our team. When we ask God for wisdom in our places of work, God may talk to us though suggestions of others, and we need to have the humility to accept them and use them. I remember as I turned 40 in the 1990s, I used to be active recruiting graduates from campuses, and many times I would find their methods of working were very different from mine. I had a boss who used to constantly remind us that we needed to get used to working with the “MTV generation”.  Concepts of "loyalty to my company" did not go down well with them. I had to listen to understand them.

Our God has a good sense of humour when he puts people together in marriage. I am very meticulous and organized by nature, while my wife is more spontaneous in the way she does things. In the early years of marriage, I was not very open to “listening”. Over the last thirty years or more I have learned that being open to her suggestions and line of thinking, many times, has given me more wisdom and discernment on crucial decisions. 

Prayer: 

Dear Lord give me the wisdom to be open to ideas and suggestions and points of view, many times from unlikely people.