CRITICISM

I’m skilled at offering constructive criticism.  I know that sounds funny.  Is criticism a “skill”?  Can someone be particularly adept at being critical???  Maybe it sounds like I’m splitting hairs (being overly “critical”, perhaps), but I should say from the outset, there is a profound difference between offering constructive criticism and having a critical spirit.  My particular skill, I believe, is at offering critical analysis for a constructive purpose.  

For as long as I could remember, you could ask me if I have an opinion, and of course I do.  I always do.  I will come up with an opinion in the moment even if it’s something I’ve never considered before simply because I have opinions about EVERYTHING!  The wheels are always spinning and I’m always thinking and analyzing and formulating new thoughts and opinions.

Like any other particular gift or talent we have, it takes some time to realize that “not everyone is like that” and this truly is something unique.  That probably began happening in the past few years.  Whereas I used to take this for granted, I now really believe God has gifted me to be able to analyze and offer improvements, to see a forest and be able to decipher the most important trees, to come up with better ways of seeing or doing or saying or communicating.  Present me with anything, and I can analyze it and suggest improvements.

I suppose law school honed this particular talent.  “Learn to think like a lawyer” is the mantra they drum into your brain on at least a daily basis.  What they really mean is they want you to learn how to analyze – how to apply rules to facts and form a conclusion.  While it’s a particular lawyerly skill, I love that the Apostle Paul also had this ability.  And, not surprisingly, it is also is characteristic of the D-C DiSC profile. 

Now before you tire of what sounds like my self-aggrandizing, self-promoting post, I have to tell you that I am fully aware that it is just a particular gifting from God and has nothing to do with me, per se.  I am very certain that this is simply how He made me.  Sure, life experiences have developed this skill, but it’s not me, it’s God. 

How do I know it’s Him and not me? 

There is one very, very telling sign:  I hold no emotional attachment to my opinions.  

Seriously, none. If you ask my opinion, you can take my advice or leave it, and I don’t care.  Truly.  Don’t.  Care.  I don’t take it personally; I don’t secretly sit back and wait for failure since my opinion wasn’t followed; I’m perfectly fine even if I’m certain I’m correct and you are going down the wrong path.  I’m equally content being proven wrong in my assessment.  I will offer opinions all day long; present me with a different fact and I’ll offer five different options.  And I can sit back and really hold no attachment whatsoever to the opinion and what is done with it. 

And that’s how I know with 100% certainty it’s God.  Because if this skill was driven by me, I would hold SO much attachment to my opinions that I would become impossible to be around.  I would be the most critical, judgy, controlling person in the world and would be emotionally governed by whether people did what I said or not. 

And I know this for a certainty as well because quite some time ago, that very thing slowly started to happen. 

Looking back now, I see how my constructive criticism began to turn into me developing a critical spirit, how I became judgy.  It didn’t happen all at once; of course, it never does.  But I started to be bothered if my advice wasn’t followed; not enough to really notice it, but just enough to create a little “attitude”. I grew increasingly frustrated when things were being done differently than I thought.  Oh, the frustration alone should have been enough to tell me something was wrong.  But it wasn’t.   I began to have an arrogance about my opinions and “forgot” that I’ve always been perfectly fine with being wrong or having things done differently.  After awhile, I began even secretly dooming people to failure in my mind because they weren’t doing things how I thought best. Now, I never actually said “my way or the highway”, but I’m sure I acted that way.

Sadly, in the moment, I didn’t see what was happening, but in hindsight, I can see so clearly.  My redeemed gift of being able to offer constructive criticism was being twisted into sinful judgment and condemnation. 

As a quick aside, I think all gifts have a redeemed and unredeemed manifestation.  Redeemed, my skill is constructive criticism.  Unredeemed, it is a critical spirit, a judgy, condemnatory, holier-than-thou self-righteousness that has been influenced by pride.  And, unfortunately, before my very eyes, a gift God had given me, which was to be used in submission to His plans and purposes, was being used to fuel a sin pattern that was growing and festering into an all-consuming obsession.  It had grown into a way of life for me; the filter through which I judged everyone and everything.  It had elevated me to the heights of arrogance and driven me to the depths of depravity. 

An overstatement, you think???  Not at all --  not when I see how God had to deal with me in it. 

And deal with me He did.  I’m not even ready to write about THAT because it wasn’t pretty and I still shutter at the thought of it.  Suffice to say, God hated what I was doing.  Hopefully soon I’ll be able to share, but for now, I’m still reeling. 

Meanwhile, my thought for today is simply this:  when I consider the other skills and talents He has given me, what do they look like in their unredeemed form?  I’ve never even thought of that, but perhaps I should because if I fell victim to this once, Satan will try the same ploy on me again and again and again.  The question is, will I be proactive now so that he doesn’t succeed?