We can think of fools as those who are ignorant. People who lack wisdom and understanding. Few, very few, people like to be called a fool. Just as few like to think of themselves a fool. But we all act foolishly at times, whether we realize it or not. No one can be wise in every area. No one can honestly claim not to be ignorant. Fools lack wisdom and proceed as if they know. Someone who is wise and lacks knowledge proceeds as if they don’t know. Someone who is wise proceeds as if a fool when their lack of knowledge makes them a fool. They proceed as if they don’t know when they don’t know. We are wise to consider ourselves a fool when we lack wisdom and understanding.
So how are we, finite little beings that we are, to approach Our Heavenly Father? How much can one set of eyes, one set of ears, confined to a body short of days, comprehend the eternal? “And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches – yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them.” 2 Nephi 9:42
Which brings me to Joseph Smith, Jr., finite and flawed mortal man that he was. When he was 15 years old, a number of different faiths were active in the area in which he and his family lived, and Joseph and many of his other family members attended their meetings; Presbyterians, Methodist, and Baptists among them. But the “war of words and tumult of opinions” and “extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists” was the cause of much confusion in his mind. And then he read James 1:5. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Joseph later reported, “I reflected on [James 1:5] again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God.”
If you want to know the will of Our Heavenly Father for you, ask Him. Others can give suggestions, others can give advice that is more or less helpful, but He is the ultimate source of knowledge and understanding of His will. If you don’t know, ask. Ask Our Heavenly Father.