“If you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.” Proverbs 15:32 NLT
“God loves you too much to let you ignore everyone.”
My thoughts and comments today are about “correction.”
Correction is necessary at some time for everyone. No one is perfect enough to never need some words of counsel and correction at some occasion. The person who bristles – isn’t that an interesting, descriptive word? – when corrected will eventually have no one around who loves them enough to offer help. If you are usually unappreciative of others’ opinions, they will eventually avoid your company or interact cautiously and reluctantly, if at all.
None of us like to be corrected, but all of us will need it, usually at the time you least appreciate. Here is what I have learned the hard way. When I do not heed wise and needed counsel from people God placed in my life, God will use a person from whom I least like to hear it. God watches to see if you will receive the message He brings or react to the messenger He sends. God loves you too much to let you ignore everyone.
Admittedly, there is an art to correction that most of us have not mastered. Correction done improperly – wrong time, wrong way – will probably cause more reaction than reception, negating its very intention. It appears that correction is not so much what you say as it is about when, how, and why you say what you do. Also, a proven relationship best gives opportunity to offer advice. The Bible establishes the importance of a context of mutual love and trust, “speaking the truth in love.” Ephesians 4:15 NIV. Love does not give you a right to say what you feel; love gives you a responsibility to evidence concerned caring, considering how your words will make the other feel.
Solomon had much to say in Proverbs about criticism, advice, correction, and discipline. I would differentiate between those in this way: criticism must pass the most stringent criteria of motive and responsibility, or reserved for a friendship you are willing to be without (if you are unsure it is your place to do so, it probably isn’t!); advice is one person’s opinion in response to another’s request, respecting their freedom of choice; correction should be given sparingly and prayerfully with loving regard and tenderness; discipline is exercised by someone in authority to only those accountable to them. “To learn, you must love discipline.” Proverbs 12:1 NLT. Read Hebrews 12:11 NLT. When those lines get blurred, the result is often more harm than help.
“If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home with the wise. If you reject criticism, you only harm yourself; but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.” Proverbs 15:31-32 NLT. Counsel and correction can do you no more good than your willingness to accept them.
My prayer for you today is that you welcome Godly counsel and correction.