So Quick to Criticize

Raise your hand if you have ever put your foot in your mouth.

Raise your hand if you were ever at a loss as to what to say to someone but felt you must say something and did the best you could, in utmost sincerity for the other person’s well being.

Raise your hand if you have ever insisted that you were right, and later, most likely when alone, realized that you were, indeed, incorrect.

Raise your hand if you have ever griped at your kids, made a sarcastic remark toward your spouse, evaded a neighbor in the grocery store, or made a judgment about a person or situation without having all the facts.

Raise your hand if you wish that every above instance committed by you was not only published on the front page of every major newspaper, but dissected, speculated upon and re-examined for days afterward.

My hand was raised for the first four scenarios. I kept it down for the last one.

It’s embarrassing enough to make a fool of one’s self, be it intentionally or unintentionally (and really, does anyone intentionally make a fool of themselves?), among co-workers, friends or family.

It’s tough, if not impossible, to always know the best way to navigate family and friendships in a way that pleases everyone.

But to have one’s every move magnified to the nth degree by people who weren’t even there, or who were there, but in schadenfreude and an appetite for gossip, or because they operate out of a habitual critical spirit or identity politics, interpret and relay the incident incorrectly.

Or, they simply did not approve of how someone did things, so, feeling jilted, they lash out in scornful commentary to anyone within earshot. (Notice, too, that the disgruntled will rarely, if ever, voice their attacks directly to the person they are at odds with).

It seems that no one is immune from poker-hot appraisals and sallying slams that ad-lib first, and never even get to the part about “think later.”

Scripture asks,

“What good is a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?"

I would also ask,

“What good is a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits the soul or reputation of another?”

The world gained by the hysterics of half-baked town-crierism is drama.

The theatrics of offense, microaggression, entitlement, us vs. them, and shouting down the other guy impart an intoxicating, but temporary, boost to one’s affirmation-obsessed psyche. Short-lived because it is built on sand, this mental state must be constantly fed with new grievances, affronts, rants and outrage.

Like I said, no one is immune from being the target of such venom.

This past weekend I had the privilege of hearing Pastor Tony Evans preach. His subject was grace.

“Grace,” he said, “does not mean taking license.”

But that is what we do: the world’s increasing sense of individual self-assurance has become our license to believe what we want to believe without any perusing of original sources or soberly asking fact-filling questions.

I don’t know who to cite for the quote, 

“You can be sincere: sincerely wrong,”

but it sums up the trouble with basing our worldview on how many likes our “what-if thinking” and strong-willed opinions rack up on Facebook, or the accordance one finds in a favorite television political pundit.

The tendency today is to mouth-off; very few are speaking credibly, with integrity (the latter, by the way, is grace).

The next generation will suffer for the lack of leadership in how to think, and thus, speak, well.

When it comes to social discourse, much has changed just in my life time. But the admonition for Christians to “be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger” (James 1:19) has not changed.

Only when we stand in the affirmation of Christ, taking seriously His Word to not bear false witness against our neighbor (Exodus 20:16) or bite and devour one another (Galatians 5:15), will we be able to stand before God, and others, with a clear conscience.

Jesus is the revealer of every heart’s condition when he states,

“For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart” (Matthew 12:34b).

Thus, our daily, sincerely-desired prayer to God, asking,

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

 Be acceptable in Your sight,

O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

The sin of offense, the sin of thinking too highly of oneself, the sin of vengeance, the sin of wanting to be right (and the pride in sometimes actually being right) are encumbrances which so easily ensnare us—that take our eyes and our hearts off Jesus.

Instead, let us repudiate these sin reactions and instead “run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1b-2).

Copyright Barb Harwood

“Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.

Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins;

Let them not rule over me;

Then I will be blameless,

And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.” Psalm 19:13

“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being,

And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” 

Psalm 51:6

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” 

Psalm 51:10