Spout off Criticism

Greetings in Jesus name! Welcome to this beautiful new morning! Welcome to all the possibilities and opportunities that we have today! Every relationship, conversation are all opportunities for us to create life. The bible says that your words, your tongue, can either give or destroy life. So, every conversation that you have today has the potential to give birth to something new, to someone new, to some project, to some vision, to some movement; it can give birth or vice versa, it also destroy, kill, bring to nothing movements, people, conversations, institutions that have been elevated, your words can bring them down to nothing.

Let us hear this conversation between Job and his friends. Job says in Job 16:4, 5, 6. I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you. But, if it were me, I would encourage you, I would try to take away your grief. Instead, I suffer if I defend myself and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.

This is Job’s frustration with his friends. He says “I am defending my position, my relationship with God, every choice and decision that I have made in life. Instead of helping me to carry my grief, helping me to understand what is happening around me, here you are spouting off criticism and shaking your heads at me.”

If you understand the conversation between Job and his friends, all the things that his friends said were truths, truths about God’s righteousness, about God’s judgement against sinners, about God’s love for his people and his disdain for the wicked. Everything that they shared was the truth. Yet, those truths were misapplied in Job’s life. The bible says that God was upset at the end of the story with Job’s friends; not because they spoke a lie or they understood nothing about God, it was because they did not have compassion as they dealt with Job.

Job is now responding to them and he says “if you were in my place, I could have also done the exact same thing; I could have also criticized you, shaking my head at you and making all kinds of nonverbal action, my body language could be such that you don’t deserve your blessing. Yet, this is what I am going to do. I would have encouraged you, I would have tried to take away your grief.”

Friend, listen to me, wherever you are placed, whether it is in your home, your workplace, or among your neighbours, can you be somebody that will take away people’s grief, bring encouragement in every conversation, in every word that comes out of your mouth will be encouraging. Every thing that you suggest or advise would be encouraging and not criticizing. Some times, we think that criticism is the best advice I could give somebody or best way of helping somebody or best solution to all the mess that these guys are in. As much as criticism of their current situation may be truthful, your evaluation may be correct, your understanding may be profound, yet it may not be the right response. The right response would be one of encouragement.

All of us have this tendency to tell our friends or family members “I told you so.” “I told you that you shouldn’t invest there, I told you that you shouldn’t talk to this guy, I told you that you shouldn’t extend your time in this work place.” Yet, that is not going to be encouraging. That is only going to be further discouraging and further killing their self esteem. On the other hand, if you would go to them and say “I understand what you have faced and I still believe that God can bring something beautiful out of this, I still believe that God will help you and protect you.” We are all surrounded by people that make poor choices or that make bad decisions. But today, the Lord is bringing you to a higher plain in your conversations, to a plain where you will be an encouragement, to a plain where you will take away the grief of God’s people and even unbelievers. The people that we are surrounded by don’t understand Christianity or Jesus, but they are looking to you for solutions and answers. Will you be the person that is going to take away their grief, that will remove the sadness and sorrow from their hearts? I know that God is the ultimate person who can bring us joy. Yet, he has placed you on the earth and he says “you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, go and shine your light for all to see so that they can praise your father who is in heaven.” I am sure that we are going to meet people that are suffering like Job suffered today and our first response has to be to embrace them, encourage them, and help them to carry their burdens, griefs, challenges and struggles.

May the Lord help you with it, open your eyes to see it and address it appropriately.