I had a riveting experience the other day. 

No, it wasn’t exciting or anything like that. I was trying to rivet a couple of clasps on my briefcase.

I don’t know too much about riveting, but I do own a rivet gun. … I’m not sure why they call it a gun because nothing comes shooting out of it. 

My fear was that if I went anywhere with my briefcase I would lose the two clasps that were dangling. 

This briefcase is a satchel style that you sling over your shoulder. It has a couple of zippered compartments for paper and my laptop and a flap that comes over the zippered compartments and attaches to the front of the bag with two clasps. 

The two ends that the clasps clip into are attached to the satchel by rivets. One rivet on each end had broken off so the ends spun around and put more pressure on the rivets that were still in place. 

I figured I just needed to put a couple of rivets in and I would be good to go again.

But it wasn’t working. The rivets would not stay in.

In hindsight I think it was partly due to the fact that I don’t know how to use my rivet gun all that well. But it was also partly due to the fact that the rivets I had were not long enough.

So off to the hardware store I went. 

Now I like to snoop around for what I want and only ask for help when I’m frustrated or need some expert advice. On this trip, however, an employee came up to me rather quickly and asked if I needed helped.

Inside I was thinking, “No, I’m good”. But I didn’t want to put the guy off so I replied, “Sure, what do you know about rivets?”

He admitted he didn’t know much but took me over to where he thought they might be. 

We looked at them and I asked a couple of questions. The employee didn’t seem to have any answers nor think the ones we looked at would work. He offered no other solution, so I thanked him and walked away. 

I thought these hardware guys were experts, but he was no help at all. 

I circled around a couple of aisles and then decided to go back and take a closer look at the rivet section myself. Upon closer scrutiny, there was a package of multi-length rivets with some  that were longer than what I had. 

I bought the package, went home and then had to figure out how to properly work my rivet gun to complete the repair. 

After a couple of failed attempts, I decided to watch some YouTube instructional videos. Some were useless, but from a couple others I figured out what I was doing wrong with my rivet gun.

I was then quickly able to fix my briefcase.

Now I’m confident that the next time I have to leave the house, nothing is going to fall out of my briefcase.

Here’s the thing: There are many people who offer advice and wisdom to us. We must be able to distinguish between what is good advice and what is bad. If you spend time in God’s word you will train yourself to be able to tell the good from the bad.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Where do you go to get good advice? Leave your questions and comments below.

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