Criticism

Week two is finished and it was another good one! I think one of my favorite things that I learned about God is really something I've heard over and over again nearly all my life. We read an online article about criticism and it opened my eyes so much. It was talking about how defensive we, as humans, tend to get when we're criticized but that's not Christlike at all. Isaiah 53:7 says, "He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth." That amazes me! To think of all of the things that were said to Jesus, how he was wrongly accused so many times and never once do we see scripture evidence showing that he fought, yelled, argued, or defended himself. The truth is, he knew who he was in God and that was enough for him. He didn't find it necessary to prove it to anyone who thought otherwise. I learned a little something about myself in the process of this and it's a challenge I'm determined to face. I get defensive. This isn't really news to me, I guess. What's news to me is how wrong it is for me to become defensive. Christ justified me when he died on the cross and by my feeling the need to defend myself I'm saying that the death of Jesus was not good enough for me. Man can criticize me or judge me to the death but the truth is that mankind can only see a fraction of my guilt; God sees it all. If God sees all of my junk and still accepts me then that's what really counts because it's God's view of me that really matters. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"We defend that which we deem of great value. We think it is our life we are saving. We believe something much larger will be lost if we do not use every means to rescue it. Our name, our reputation, our honor, our glory. 'If I don't point out that I've been misunderstood, misquoted, or falsely accused, then others won't know I'm right. And if I don't point out my rightness, nobody will. I will be scorned and condemned in the eyes of others.' Do you see the idol of self here? The desire for self-justification?" (Click here for the full article.)

That's true of me, as much as I hate to admit it. But luckily God's grace is never-ending and He showed me this in a gentle way, rather than allowing it to blow up in my face. Needless to say, I'll be thinking about all of this the next time I'm criticized, judged, or blamed...whether presented in a right or wrong way, truthful or not. (And may God's grace abound even more when that happens!)