Supplemental Lesson 4
by
Steve Bryant
There is so much in Hannah’s story! But for this supplement to your
Horizon’s Bible Study, I want to let Hannah’s experience focus our attention
on one crucial question about life: How do good faithful Christians deal
with criticism? Poor Hannah, living day after day under the cruel and
malicious criticism of Peninnah. Without a doubt, the most important lesson
Hannah teaches us is to be very careful about your response, when you are
the victim.
Again, how do good faithful Christians deal with criticism? There are at
least two sides of the issue:
First, how do we deal with the need to offer criticism? Can the Christian
offer criticism? Yes, but Jesus instructs us to do some very specific things
first. Before offering criticism of another, we must first look very
carefully into our own lives. ‘Take the log out of my eye before I criticize
the speck in your eye.” After we’ve gone through a season of careful and
honest self-examination, then we try on empathy. We try to understand why a
person has done something worthy of our criticism. The great baseball
player, Ted Williams was 17 years old when the recruiter came to visit in
his home. After the visit, the recruiter thought Ted Williams was the
rudest, most ill-mannered young man he had ever met. Ted Williams wouldn’t
even stand to greet the recruiter. He just sat there on the couch looking
like an obstinate kid with a really bad attitude. But there was reason why
Ted Williams refused to stand. He was poor and he was embarrassed by the
huge hole in the sofa cushion. Before we offer criticism, we need to at
least wonder why that person is acting that way, and perhaps, in the spirit
of Jesus, we can give them the benefit of the doubt.
Self-examination and empathy are the prerequisites of all healthy criticism.
Peninnah represents the kind of person who offers the exact opposite of
healthy criticism!
Second, how do you handle the times when you’re the Ted Williams, or even
worse, when you are the Hannah? How do we cope with the criticism which
inevitably comes our way?
I think we sometimes forget the awful power of criticism. In the short term,
it has the power to send even healthy people into temporary mild depression.
It has the power to force us to react, the power to make us think and say
things in response that we would never think or say in a sane moment. It has
the power to affect us physically – the heart rate escalates, the blood
pressure rises. It has the power to make us want to fight. And it even has
the power to make us want to curl up in a fetal position and cry. How many
tears do you imagine Hannah shed on her couch? But criticism, offered
lovingly and received maturely, has the power to move us forward in our
journey of life. We can grow or die by the power of criticism. We have to
choose our reaction.
What was Hannah’s reaction? To lean upon the Lord in prayer!
Sometimes, in our lives criticism comes our way and it’s intent is simply to
destroy. That was clearly Peninnah’s motivation. Jesus knew something about
this kind of criticism. They said all kinds of evil and false things about
Him because they hated Him. Jesus’ critics weren’t hoping that they could
win Him over to their point of view. They wanted to get rid of Him
altogether. They said ‘He’s crazy…He’s a liar…He has ulterior motives.”
They even said He was of the Devil! My hope is that you’ve never been the
recipient of that kind of evil criticism, but it’s out there in the world.
There’s far too much of it. I hate to admit this about myself, but I think I
have grown to expect that kind of evil in the political process. What kind
of campaign ads got your attention in the last election cycle? Maybe you can
resonate with this too: Upon reflection, I have to admit that lately I turn
on the news not to see what happened, but to see who’s being criticized for
what.
Or what about in the midst of divorce, which is all too common in our
culture? Don’t we kind of expect good people to totally abandon their
integrity until the divorce is final?
When you are the victim of criticism designed to destroy, you have a choice.
Descend to the level of the criticism so that you can fire back; descend to
the level of the world’s evil. Or, be like Hannah. Lean upon the Lord in
prayer and trust in the promise of Jesus: that when people say all manner of
evil things about you, your reward is great – your reward is in the Kingdom
of Heaven and not even the gates of Hell can prevail against that!
You can stand up for yourself. You can stand firm when you know beyond a
shadow of a doubt that your position is right. But don’t dare descend to the
level of that evil criticism.
And of course most of the time the criticism we receive is not designed to
destroy us but it’s just a matter of not seeing eye to eye with someone who
really does care about us. Your boss says, ‘I sure wish you’d do a better
job at this particular task.” Or may the criticism comes from your husband
(of course, I NEVER criticize my wife!!!), or your parents, or a dear
friend. And you know in your heart that there’s a ring of truth in the
criticism and that there are many things you can do better. And there you
are the recipient of criticism and in that moment of time you have to make a
choice about what you do with the criticism. Will you give it the power to
make you react negatively? Or, will you give it the power to make you grow.
Tough choice! It’s a test of one’s level of maturity. Do you react or do you
grow? God wants growth.
Dr. Richard Carlson authored a wonderful little book entitled Don’t Sweat
the Small Stuff. I highly recommend it. Dr. Carlson offers an entry with the
heading, *’Just for Fun, Agree with Criticism Directed Toward You (Then
Watch It Go Away).”*
He writes:
‘An incredibly useful exercise is to agree with criticism directed
toward you. I’m not talking about turning into a doormat…by believing
all the negativity that comes in your direction. I’m only suggesting
that there are many times when simply agreeing with criticism defuses
the situation, satisfies a person’s need to express a point of view,
offers you a chance to learn something about yourself by seeing a grain
of truth in another position, and, perhaps most important, provides you
an opportunity to remain calm.” p.127 & 128.
And he goes on to illustrate the strategy by remembering a time when his
wife said ‘Sometimes you talk too much.” He said he was momentarily hurt
but he agreed with her. ‘You’re right, I do talk too much sometimes.” He
said that he discovered that in agreeing with her he was able to own up to
the reality that she was right, but at the same time, he defused a potential
conflict. His non-defensive reaction relaxed her. A little later on, she
said, ‘You know, you’re sure easy to talk to.” And she would have never
said that had he reacted defensively. ‘Reacting to criticism never makes the
criticism go away. In fact, negative reactions to criticism often convince
the person doing the criticizing that they are accurate in their assessment
of you.”
Criticism has great power. The power to destroy or the power to prompt
growth. But the criticism we most need to deal with, the criticism with the
greatest power to destroy, is the criticism we heap upon ourselves.
Growth and maturity depends upon our willingness to look within and to enter
into those seasons of careful self-examination. We have to be able to get
those logs out of our eyes. Self-criticism. It can be something which makes
you bloom in newness or wither in self-loathing. That’s the eminent danger -
that we allow our self-criticism to become self-loathing, self-hatred.
Is that where you are right now? Have you allowed self-criticism to become
self-loathing? I have a sneaking suspicion that there are quite a few folks
in our midst for whom that is the case. If so, know this day that you still
can make a choice. And the choice is this: Continue to empower the most evil
of all criticism to rule your life and strip you of your happiness, or
empower the truth within you…the truth that will set you free, and make
you grow, and bring the happiness that you are looking for. The truth is
this: Despite all your faults, all your inadequacies, all the things about
yourself that you really dislike….despite all of that, you belong to God.
You are a child of the Heavenly Father. He loves you so much that He was
willing to pay the highest price because when he looks into your life, He
sees someone worth dying for. And I promise you that if you will claim that
truth, everything you’re missing in life (the happiness, the contentment,
the peace, the growth) all will be found.
Remember what Jesus said about criticism. It sure was true in Hannah’s
experience:
‘Blessed are you, when people say all kinds of evil things against you
because of Me…blessed are you, for your reward will be great!”
And what was Hannah’s reward? Six babies, one of whom (Samuel) would one day
lay his hands upon the head of Israel’s first kings, Saul and David.
Lord,
Give us grace when malicious tongues are wagging against us.
Give us strength when fingers are pointing at our faces.
Give us peace when voices raise.
Give us love to share in response to hate.
In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.