Does God critique us?
I have pretty high expectations of myself. A lot of the time when I achieve something, I’m not necessarily pleased. I’ll often critique heavily what I have done. It is very deliberate on my part to celebrate my successes, because my natural instinct wouldn’t be to do so.
In some ways, it is inevitable that I would critique. Besides the fact that I am naturally an analytical person, and it would be a given that I would point that magnifying glass back at myself…I also just heard a lot of criticism in my life. I would say that is true for most of us. Whether it’s in the form of taunting, or if it’s the rigorous academic systems that assess our conformity to the standards.
So many of these critiques are aimed at things that we just can’t do anything about too. Like my height. Boy I wish I could do something about that! Not many people I know have to think about having a step ladder in their home. And I’m sure you too have felt this struggle, it seems quite typical of our society.
So here’s the WORD from GOD that I recently had:
GOD DOESN’T CRITICISE OUR PERSONALITIES
In fact, He isn’t really criticising us per se. There is no evidence in scripture that God harbours the criticisms we are often making of ourselves:
Not smart enough
Too needy
Too analytical (I’ve heard that a few times)
Too messy
Not fast enough
Not pretty enough
Not fun
Too serious
Whatever may be the specific critique you hold yourself up against, is probably not how God is seeing you. He never meant for our personalities to become something we forced into a pre-set mould. In fact, He loves us the way He created us.
Sometimes the reason we don’t experience the kind of freedom we’ve been told we can have in Christ, is because we have allowed the standard of others, to be our measure. We’ve tried to change the design He has uniquely given us.
God’s biggest priority is sin. When He looks at us, He is not worried about our personalities. He is more concerned with the sin that controls us. That is the areas that He is trying to help us change - again, so we can be more free.
So, how many qualities have you tried to change in yourself that weren’t meant to be changed?