The Only Critic Who Counts Is Your Biggest Fan
“God is my shield, saving those whose hearts are true and right.
God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day.”
Psalm 7:10-11
No one is exempt from criticism. David wasn’t—he had his Cush (identified in the title of Psalm 7). Even the pure motives of the most perfect person who ever lived, Jesus, were often misunderstood, resulting in malicious criticism:
- They called Jesus a glutton. (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:34)
- They called him a drunkard. (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:34)
- They criticized his association with sinners. (Matthew 9:11, Mark 2:16, Luke 5:30)
- They called him, worst of all a Samaritan, a racial slur, inferring that he was selling out to the enemy. (John 8:48)
Maybe you face a critic, too. It could be that you have one at work, or at church, or perhaps you face one even at home—the one place that ought to be free of destructive criticism. And if you let them, they will sap the strength right out of you. Frankly, their criticism hurts…even when it is plainly untrue.
If you have a critic nipping at you right now—and if you don’t, stick around for a while, you’ll have one soon enough—I would recommend you do what David did. He ordered his life by the true and only Critic who mattered, entrusting himself to God’s righteous judgment and sin-covering grace.
Whenever your critic shows up and starts shooting arrows your way, rather than spending too much of your precious energy on them, go to God. He is the only one who truly knows you, and at the end of the day, it is his evaluation that matters. Learn to pray David’s prayer from Psalm 139:23-24
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Pray that prayer humbly and honestly before God, listen and respond to his voice, and you will be just fine. By the way, this Critic is your biggest fan!
“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”
—The Apostle Paul, I Corinthians 4:3-4