By Dianne Neal Matthews:

The recent death of Pauline Phillips, originator of the Dear Abby column, reminds us where to find God and the ultimate advice for living.

 This article is adapted from the book The One Year on This Day (Tyndale House).

Image of Pauline Phillips, the original Dear Abby in 1961 (Wikipedia)

In January 1956, the first Dear Abby column appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Pauline Phillips wrote the advice column ­under­ the pen name Abigail Van Buren, answering readers’ questions about relationships, romance, health, and social issues.

In 1987, Phillips’s daughter, Jeanne, began writing the column with her, and the two worked together until Pauline retired in 2002. According to Universal Uclick, Dear Abby appears in about 1,400 newspapers worldwide, has a daily readership of more than 110 million — in print and on its Web site, dearabby.com — and receives more than 10,000 letters and e-mails a week.

Pauline’s identical twin sister, Esther Lederer, had already begun a career as an advice columnist a few months earlier. She won the Chicago Sun-Times contest to become the second Ann Landers, after the woman who had created the column died. The column was published in more than 1,200 newspapers with ninety million daily readers until Esther’s death in 2002.

We all need a little advice sometimes. The book of Proverbs has much to say about seeking counsel from others:

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise. Proverbs 12:15 (NKJV)

We are urged to make plans and go to war ­only with good counsel and advice from others (20:18). Still, we need to be careful of the source and content of any advice we receive. It must be carefully filtered through the Bible to make sure it’s not contrary to God’s counsel.

Advice from trusted friends or professional counselors can be valuable and helpful if it is sound and biblically based. But we ­shouldn’t forget God’s credentials:

“Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine” (Proverbs 8:14 NLT).

Isaiah even gave the name Counselor to ­Jesus hundreds of years before his birth (Isaiah 9:6). Advice columns can be helpful, but before running to a newspaper column, we should go to the One who wrote the Book on wise advice. In the Bible, we’ll find God and the ultimate advice on living that will change us forever.

You can read more about Pauline Phillips’ life and career in this New York Times article: Pauline Phillips, Flinty Adviser to Millions as Dear Abby, Dies at 94

In this brief excerpt from a 1990 Larry King interview, Phillips talks about how she got her break in the advice column business:

©Dianne Neal Matthews (www.diannenealmatthews.com). Dianne is a freelance writer and the author of four daily devotional books, including Designed for Devotion: A 365-Day Journey from Genesis to Revelation (Baker Books 2012) in paperback, Kindle or Kindle for PC.

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