All great ideas create conflict, battle, and wars. In other words, your destiny creates challenges and criticism.
Every great, big, and unique idea has three stages of responses:
Our response to critics should be what Paul says: “We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8–9). Love your enemies, but if you really want to make them mad, ignore them completely.
Criticism of Christians is the language of the devil. The Bible describes the devil as the accuser of the brethren. Therefore, we should consider Jesus’s words: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone” (John 8:7). Bees can’t make honey and sting at the same time. Attention men: before you criticize another, look closely at your sister’s brother!
We should heed the still small voice, not the deafening blasts of doom. If your head sticks up above the crowd, expect more criticism than bouquets. Satan always attacks those who can hurt him the most. God works from the inside out; the devil tries to work from the outside in.
Whoever criticizes to you will criticize about you. A person who belittles you is only trying to cut you down to his or her size. A critic is one who finds fault without a search warrant. A statue has never been set up to a critic.
A bus carrying only ugly people crashes into an oncoming truck, and everyone inside dies. As they stand at the pearly gates waiting to enter paradise and meet their maker, God decides to grant each person one wish because of the grief they have experienced.
They’re all lined up, and God asks the first person to make a wish. “I want to be gorgeous,” and so God snaps His fingers and it is done.
The second one in line hears this and says, “I want to be gorgeous too.” Another snap of God’s fingers and the wish is granted.
This goes on for a while, with each one asking to be gorgeous. But when God is halfway down the line, the last guy in the line starts laughing. When there are only ten people left, this guy is rolling on the floor, laughing his head off.
Finally, God reaches this last guy and asks him what his wish will be. The guy eventually calms down and says, “Make ’em all ugly again.”
You can always tell a failure by the way he or she criticizes success. Failures never offer a better solution to a problem. Those who can—do. Those who can’t—criticize. Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are often the ones who dropped it. If it weren’t for the doers, the critics would soon be out of business. Envy provides the mud that failures throw at success. Those who are throwing mud are simultaneously losing mud. Small minds are the first to criticize large ideas.
If people talk negatively about you, live so no one will believe them. Fear of criticism is the kiss of death in the courtship of achievement. If you’re afraid of criticism, you’ll die doing nothing. A successful person is someone who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others throw at them.
Criticism is a compliment when you’re following God’s plan.