KEY: Look at the fruit in a person’s life before you choose them to be your mentor.
When looking for a mentor, I have personally always chosen mentors who were AT LEAST a season ahead of me. While I do believe you can learn from your friends and even those who are younger than you, scripturally the Lord has purposefully laid out his design for us to have productive teaching and mentoring from those who are older and wiser. However, just because they are older doesn’t make them qualified! Look at the fruit in their life. Everyone has fruit, good or bad. Be wise! Don’t take advice, counsel, mentoring, or coaching from someone who doesn’t have good fruit or if you can’t see the fruit in their life.
Choosing a mentor as a wife: Again, you need to look at the fruit in their lives. For example, I am a wife. If I am looking for a mentor in marriage, I am going to choose a mentor who’s marriage I respect. If the woman doesn’t seem to respect her husband biblically, or if there seems to be anything obviously “off” or that I wouldn’t want to imitate, then they are a wrong choice. This method requires getting to know people. Really, truly knowing them. But seriously, if you are going to be going to them for counsel and advice, you kind of need to know it is going to be biblical and sound.
Isaac & Angie Tolpin
Choosing a mentor as a mother: As a mother, I look for women who have children a whole season ahead of me. I look at their children. If I think to myself, “Wow. I really like her children . . . I hope my kids turn out like that . . . ” then I believe she has “earned” the right to be heard. Just as the Bible says we need to be wise who we choose as friends, we also need to be wise who we choose as mentors. So do they have strong relationships with their kids? Are their kids following the Lord purposefully? I look for traits I desire in my own children, such as a servant heart towards all people, missions, God’s work on earth. Who are more concerned with God’s plan for their lives than what the next trend is.
So if you are a young mom, find a mom who has gone through the young years successfully, not just survived through them, but thrived through them.
The Tolpin Family – Fall, 2011
While there are some cases where young women have wisdom beyond their years (usually because they themselves have been mentored by their mother or other older women), I have always chosen not to take advice from people who have not experienced it themselves successfully. For example, I would never take parenting advice from someone who only had one or two children who were still very young or someone who never has had children, regardless of education. You can not see the end product of their parenting philosophy. Besides all parenting techniques are easy to talk about, but doing it is another thing. While so many people hold firm to their “philosophies,” the justice/practical side of me wants to see the “proof in the pudding.”
I believe it to be foolish to pursue someone as a mentor if they are going to give you unbiblical or unwise advice. In addition to choosing people to glean “wisdom” from, you need to seek God’s wisdom above all else. You need to have His standard for what “Good Fruit” is and looks like. If you go with our cultures standards, you may be receiving poor advice/counsel. If you have children almost hitting their teen years, find older women who’s children have gone through it successfully and joyfully. If you have children about to marry, find women who have already got grandchildren on the way and so on.
I have personally benefited most, spiritually from the older generations (60’s and up), but I have found more practical advice and wisdom from women who are just a few years ahead (10-15yrs) of me in parenting, as they tend to remember more because they were just in it. However, there is still so much wisdom to be found in those older generations on parenting, a lot of what they grew up with was much more biblical than what is modeled regularly in today’s culture. Since there were no TV’s when they were kids, their parents engaged their children through work, which is something Isaac and I try to do as often as possible. My point is that, there is much to be gleaned from any generation. Don’t be closed-minded!
Use wisdom in choosing mentors by looking at the fruit in their life. Is she a wife, mother, and woman of God I want to be like? Is she following Christ? Is she in the Word? Does she have a good understanding of what God’s idea of a biblical man/woman, husband/wife, and mother/father is to look like, so you can exercise wisdom? You can’t choose wisely if you have no wisdom and God is the one who bestows it.
Blessings on the Journey,
Angie
All this week I have had such a challenge trying to budget for Christmas! I know that I am not the only one who struggles year after year with this issue! I am a giver but if left up to me, I’d be liable to give away the ranch–well, at least the monthly mortgage money to pay for our ranch-style home! It’s a good thing my husband is my check and balance this time of year!