Giving & Receiving Correction
Listening to good correction can make us wiser (Prov 19:20, NCV). Stubbornly refusing valid correction can lead to a wounding that is hard to heal (Prov 29:1, Rotherham). It can result in our ruin (Prov 10:17, NCV). It is stupid to not want to be corrected when we are wrong (Prov 12:1, TEV). Yet, much of the time we don’t like to be corrected. We resist it. Perhaps we are perfectionistic and feel shame that we made a mistake. Maybe we have unchristian ways of looking at ourselves so our self-image is fragile. Instead of thinking, ‘I made a bad choice’, we think, ‘I am a bad person’; rather than saying ‘I made a mistake’, we say, ‘What I did was so humiliating!’ Sometimes we hate correction because of how it was delivered more than what was said. In other cases, we may have such a desire to be right, to be the authority, to be in control, that we don’t want to be challenged. We don’t want to hear anything that is not consistent with our proud and superior self-image.
Giving correction is often difficult to do also. It is easy to fear their disapproval and rejection or the possibility that we are wrong instead of the one we are trying to correct being in error. Most people don’t like to deal with another’s anger – so many use habitually angry responses when corrected to keep others leery of even making the attempt. This is a fear from which we must be delivered. It is insecurity, unteachability, arrogance.
Furthermore, as with all things, timing is important (Eccl 8:5-6, NCV). How do we gage when it might be a good time to correct another? When we have demonstrated we love someone (whether or not they feel loved by us), when we have prayed about the matter (if only briefly), when we are not invested in being right on a non-sinful matter, when we believe not confronting is likely to do more harm than good – then we probably should confront. It is not easy to discern all this, however.
Let us be willing to receive and give valid criticism. Let us be willing to examine what is said through the lenses of Scripture to see what is true and what isn’t. And let us have the courage to choose to heal and be healed instead of ‘protecting’ others or ourself.
Comforting others is costly but worth it.