I think Rehoboam was a fool

He was a fool because he acted foolish, he was a fool because he spoke foolishly, but mainly, he played the fool because he looked to a bunch of fools for advice. In the defining moment of his reign, this was the path he choose:

2 Chronicles 10:8 - "But he rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him."

I find that like Rehoboam, our society has so little value for the advice of "the elders". And to me, that's really a sad commentary about the independence and pride that we all nurture from childhood.

"I'll make my own path, I'll tread my own way." What I think we are really saying is "I'll make my own mistakes, I'll hurt my own people, I'll disgrace and defame the name of the Lord my own way. No one needs to tell me how to do it."

I work with some pretty amazing "elderly" (by age, not by vigor nor by zeal) gentlemen, and I try to eat up as many of their "back in my time ..." stories as I can. And when I do, I try to remember that the wonderful thing about "experience" is it's redeeming factor, because whether good or bad the first time through, each successive time it is relived and retold, that "experience" has almost all positives and very little negatives for me to glean from. I can learn from their victories and I can learn from defeats. It's a wonderful thing!

Therefore, I think those that would ignore the advice of "the elders" are fools!

(I wonder how many times I've been a fool like this. Far too many!)