knock, knock – who’s this?

Dear friends

If someone was on the phone or at the door, we would all ask who they are, now, wouldn’t we?
Before we would speak to them further or even let them into our house?

I saw a random post on social media that shook me.

It was a picture with advice on how to no longer “give a f…..”.

And me – I don’t know about you – I tend to overthink, I tend to care too much about how others are feeling, about what they are saying and so even though I didn’t particularly like the title of it, I had a look on what it said.

Firstly, I believe it is good to be a caring and kind person and actually “give a f…..” or to put it in my words, to care about and for others and their well-being and their feelings.
Not only because it is good to be kind, but also because it is something we are called to do as Christians – love our neighbor, it is of great importance to GOD that we do so and HE said it many times in HIS word – but there is a second part of it, love your neighbor”as you love yourself” – and that’s the part where there can be confusion or even clashes.

What do I mean by that?

Well, not all of our neighbors are benevolent human beings – to say the least.

Especially as a Christian – and this is also something GOD is saying and thus it is according to our calling – we will not only have fans in the world. In fact, we will have lots of enemies – not only because of our character or nature or because of the way we look or carry ourselves, because of our political views, our taste in clothes or food or because of the way we walk or talk, but also and often because of our faith, we will have “haters”.

Those who openly express or show their dislike of our personality or anything about us, and those who will do so behind our backs.

And there’s really nothing, and I came to see truly and absolutely nothing we can do to change what people think of us.

If they choose to like us, we can do or say what we want and they will like us – until they don’t.
And if there is something wrong with us in their eyes, everything we say or do will confirm them in their opinion that there is something completely wrong with us.

And this may sound plain, but for me, there are so many more levels and layers to these truths.

I think it is worth reflecting on a lot!

Even if we look at it from our own perspective – how do we view others?

Take a loved one for example.

Wouldn’t you say that we all tend to favor, defend and make excuses for the ones close to us?
If one of them stole something or broke the law and had to go to prison, for instance, wouldn’t we all do our best to try and understand them and pardon their mistake or even defend them against other people’s judgements?
On the other hand, if someone whom we weren’t so fond of would be sentenced and sent to prison, wouldn’t we all be more likely to agree with the sentence and agree that they got what they deserved?
Except that their loved ones probably wouldn’t!

So perhaps you would agree with me that there is no absolute truth about a person, that we all have positive and negative aspects to ourselves and that opinions/judgements of a person stem from subjective views?
Yes?

And people who see us only see part of who we are and their judgements come from that limited view.

Right?

If then someone says something to us or about us, why do we care so much about their judgements, especially if it is something negative they are saying?

It makes absolutely no sense at all.

Not if we try to understand it from a logical point of view and from a grown – up, adult perspective.

Only when we look at our history, especially at our wounds from when we were little, then it suddenly makes perfect sense!

When we are children, our defense mechanisms are not fully developed, as everything else, our mental and emotional resilience and stress management abilities have to evolve and we have to improve in these areas through learning and experience and practice.
However, we are repeating our experiences from our childhood, trying to achieve a better outcome than the one we had back then – this desire is informing many of our relationships and decisions.
Until we make those patterns accessible through self awareness – and then we can overcome them and learn something better.
When we are little, we have no choice but to listen to what anyone says to us, what anyone speaks into our lives.
Parents.
Teachers.
Pastors (if we are lucky and grow up like this – me I haven’t been raised by Christian parents)
Relatives.
Friends and their parents and relatives.
And the problem is that not only do many of those people not have our best interest in mind……. in fact, society doesn’t even – society doesn’t want us to become whole, independent, self-efficient and “woke” human beings who think for themselves!
Nothing in our systems is made to make us whole.
On the contrary!
The system wants to breed obedient slaves who don’t think and do all they are told, so that the system can keep being the way it is and nobody will ever question it.
And this is true for every system (I am thinking of governmental ones or even a company or employer) – no matter if the system is good or bad.
That doesn’t make it healthy though.
If it was a healthy system, it wouldn’t have to fear individuals who can think, because if they would analyse it with their own thinking skills, they would come to the conclusion that it is a good system and they would approve of it by free will, not by force or manipulation.

Only GOD has a “system” like that – a “government” if you will.
HE has laid it all out in HIS word.
Everybody can question it, study it, reason with it – and it ALWAYS has the answer, it always stands above all contrary reason and arguments!
There is even an entire branch of theology, apologetics, which is the discipline of defending the Christian faith against criticism from atheists or other religions and I have studied it for a while and find it highly fascinating!
One of my favorite apologists is John Lennox.
The interesting thing about John Lennox – and why I think he is practically unbeatable and I love watching him “destroy” atheists in the so called “duels” they do – is that he is not a pastor.
It is very common for pastors to defend their faith in discussions or when they go out for street evangelism (which I also love to do!), but John Lennox is a professor for mathematics at the University of Oxford.
A scientist.
This gives him a credibility amongst other scientists (and a lot of the arguments against the existence of GOD comes from a scientific angle) and even amongst unbelievers, which a pastor or a regular Christian would never be able to accomplish!
If you are interested to find out more about apologetics and especially about John Lennox’s duels, here is one of them:

I may write more about apologetics, but today, I want to focus on who we listen to, whome we “let in” and open the door to.

And apologetics is just one of the methods to strengthen the point I want to make today – only GOD is always right about us.
About what we need to change or learn, about what we did wrong.
Everything and everyone else can fail with their judgement.
Even the Criminal Justice System!
I have seen many people in prison whom I believed when they told me that they are innocent!
Obviously, that doesn’t mean it is true and thank GOD that for my jobs that I have done aor will do in prison, it doesn’t matter if people are innocent or guilty….

But what I am trying to advocate for is this:

Before we accept a judgement from anyone – about ourselves and about someone else – we should remember that this is only one opinion of one person about another person and they could be wrong with their judgement.

Even if their judgement is concerning us!

To come back to this random post I saw, amongst other statements which I didn’t particularly agreed agree with, it said to not take criticism from someone whom we wouldn’t take advice from.

This hit me!

I think it is a good rule of thumb.

Why would we fret over something someone said if we don’t even consider them a source of wisdom or knowledge in any area, let alone when it comes to knowing who WE are?

The explanation is above, I think, but the reason has expired.

As adults, we have a choice whom we listen to, whom we give authority to speak into our life.

And even a godly person can be wrong sometimes, because they are only human too…..even prophecies can be wrong! And they need to be discerned and confirmed and tested as well!

Or let’s take another example.
Let’s say we want something from someone.
Want to be their friend, want them to give us a job or whatever it is…..we want them to approve of us, want them to like us, want them to favor us.
And let’s say they would express some of their likes and dislikes or if it’s a job interview for instance, it would be more clear what they would expect from us.
Wouldn’t we do our best be what they expect – or what we think they expect?
Wouldn’t we try to convince them that we are exactly what they are looking for?
Wouldn’t we also have an agenda for our interactions with them?

So when we then realise that everyone, including ourselves, has an agenda most of the time, how come we wouldn’t look at other people’s actions and reactions towards us from that point of view?
Why are we not filtering ANY feedback people give us, be it positive or negative?

Me I believe it is because we don’t want to.

We want everybody to like us and to approve of us.

This is basically insane!

And I am no exception, friends!

Like you and everyone else, I love positive feedback and I am disturbed, annoyed, shocked or even hurt sometimes by stuff people say to or about me.

I think we all need to learn to discern criticism more.

At least I do.

Why would I give someone the power and the right to make me feel sad or insecure or hurt if I don’t even value their opinion for whatever reason, why would I value something negative they say about me?

In the end , the only thing that truly matters to me is what GOD thinks of me.

And of course, there is another extreme, the other side of the spectrum, not to be willing or able to accept any criticism, and that’s not what I want to promote here either!
I believe that we should seek if there is any truth to it and it could be that we actually do need to work on this aspect of ourselves.
It could even be that GOD is indeed using this specific person / situation to teach us something.

Even though it was a worldly training where I learned this, I like this metaphor, this exercise of discernment and I was reminded of it when I saw this post and I wanted to share my thoughts about it and I also want to share this exercise with you:

When feedback comes, positive or negative, don’t “let it in” unfiltered.
Imagine a silver platter in front of you, as if someone was about to serve you some food.
You wouldn’t accept just any food on the platter, now, would you?
You would look at it and smell it and reflect if this is what you feel like having at this moment or not.
Do the same with feedback.
Discern it.
Look at it.
“Smell it”.
And then only THEN decide to accept it or reject it.
The rejection doesn’t have to be verbally even, you can just thank the person for their feedback and tell them that you will think or pray about it – that should normally be enough to end the conversation, unless they want to fight with you – which would be even another reason to not accept their “feedback” 😉

Obviously, we believers have a great advantage in that area, and me myself, I think I have to use it much more: we can take everything to GOD. Ask HIM. And HE will tell us what HE thinks, tell us about the agenda of the person, or HE will even give us feedback or teach us something without people having to tell us….

What’s your view on this?
How do you deal with criticism?

I hope and pray that this will inspire, encourage, bless and heal you.
And that THE LORD will bless you abundantly in all areas of your life. That HE will keep you and shine HIS face upon you and give you peace. In JESUS’ name I pray. AMEN.