Is It Possible for Criticism to Offer Insight?

 Criticism is characterized as a hostile reaction to what is known to be unacceptable. The first response to criticism could be to defend yourself from an attack on your character and self-esteem rather than address specific ways to make healthy changes in your feelings and behavior.

An alternative to dishing out criticism is to offer corrections based on insight and wisdom, which might actually be accepted rather than rejected. No one is beyond needing corrections, so seek insight and wisdom for making corrections rather than becoming angry and withdrawing in silence.

Insight makes it possible to detect flaws in thinking as well as in understanding how to make healthy changes. Wisdom sees the value in changing one’s behavior and thinking. Proverbs 3:11 offers this advice: “When the Lord corrects you, pay close attention.” God desires to deliver you from trouble and sorrow because he cares for you.  

_________ 

Remember what I say and never forget it… Get wisdom and insight! ... Do not abandon [them, for they] will protect you and keep you safe.

~Proverbs 4:5-9 Good News Bible

_________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.

Commit to Productive Thinking

I’m sure you've heard the expression, "Whatever your mind can conceive, you're potentially capable of achieving." The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans proved this by building complicated structures with minimum engineering tools. Think of how far Western civilization has evolved over the past 300 years to the high-tech culture of today.

This is hard to imagine, but for researchers, first there is a thought, then a challenge, which evolves into manifestations of creativity. The end result of ideas will lie dormant if time and experiment are not given to discover their potentiality.

God is not restricted to whom or where he gives insight and wisdom. Listen carefully to God’s word from Psalm 19:7: "The laws of the Lord are trustworthy and perfect, giving strength, wisdom and understanding to the mind of those who obey them." By loving God with your entire mind, who knows what you could accomplish for him that would last for all eternity? Why not commit to that today?  

_____________                   

Since before time began no one has ever imagined, no ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you who works for those who wait for him.

~Isaiah 64:4 The Message

_____________

Subscribe to the Attitudes Answers podcast on your favorite podcast platform to hear this and other 2-minute features 3 days every week.