Dealing with a Critical Spirit: Christian Judgment, Discernment & Exhortation

"In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Matt. 7:2).

The ability to be critical is a valuable skill, but it can be either good or bad. Like all tools, what matters is how you use it.

The first meaning of critic in the dictionary is “a person who forms or expresses judgments of people or things according to certain standards or values.”[1] There is nothing wrong with the abili­ty to critique in this way. We do it all the time, and we need to. There are critics in art, music, education, and government. Civilization requires critical people to keep us in line; otherwise, we would slump to an awful place.

Another meaning of critic is “someone who cen­sures or finds fault.” When that is done well, it is alright. You can legitimately find fault with something that is bad. The process of criticism itself is not a problem. A critical mind is necessary. But having a critical spirit is another thing entirely.

WRONG JUDGMENT

What is the difference between a critical mind and a critical spirit? When you have a critical spirit, the plea­sure of criticism takes over, and you set yourself up as judge or sheriff. A critical spirit is fault­finding or censorious of other people. This faultfinding is not for the other person’s good but is judgmental, condemning, and self-righteous.

Linked with criticism is the term discernment, which is the ability to see and compare. Years ago, when I first started Christian work, I asked God to give me the spirit of discernment. This is important for a Bible teacher. You need to be able to spot error when it creeps in. God gave me the gift of discernment, but years later He convicted me deeply of the abuse of that gift. 

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your broth­er’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matt. 7:3–5)

There’s a splinter in the other person’s eye and a tele­phone pole in yours. The temptation is to deal with the other person’s problem first and ignore our own.

We all have a blind spot somewhere. We don’t know everything. However, the ability to see error starkly in someone else can sometimes make us think we do know everything. We have a very difficult time turn­ing the spotlight back on ourselves and asking, “What about you?” Even the best driver cannot see every­thing. It’s impossible. When we are driving, we need to be aware of the blind spots. Spiritually speaking, Christian friendships help us to determine where our own personal blind spots are.

O would some power the Giver give us

To see ourselves as others see us.

—Robert Burns

 I did not think I had a blind spot. I was a missionary. I had been told so often that I was very spiritual that I believed it. It took marriage to open my eyes and bring out the blind spots. The major one was self-pity. I was very proud of my abil­ity to never be angry, to accept everything. If there was trouble of any kind, I would suffer rather than say any­thing. I honestly thought it was a great virtue. I had been told how levelheaded I was and how easy I was to get along with, and I believed it. Then my husband Jim pointed out that if I was offended and became quiet, I was as hard to get along with as if I had blown my top. I couldn’t buy that at first. I had grown up with a sister who blew her top, and I thought it was the most dreadful thing to live with. But Jim said, “Which is worse, to make the house cold for three days, or to have fifteen minutes of fireworks?”

It wasn’t until Jim pointed this out to me that I re­membered something my dear father said to me when I still lived at home. I had four brothers and a sister, and I was the youngest. The dishwashing duty had been lodged with me. All my siblings would say they had tak­en their turn over the years, and now it was mine. There I was stuck with washing the dishes for all those people.

One evening, I had my hands in the dish water, feel­ing very much a martyr, and my father came up behind me and said, “Bess, you know we wouldn’t help you for the world. You’re having such a good time.”

Self-pity can be a luxury to be indulged in. You can feel like you’re the world’s best martyr. “Am I not stuck with all this, and am I not being so patient about it?”

Although marriage quickly opened my eyes to several blind spots, I did not have a critical spirit in my early mar­riage. It took having four children to develop that. As a mother, you are forced into a position of leadership in the home. The meals, the laundry, the general running of the house are all your jurisdiction. I don’t know where it started, but somewhere in that first thirty years of marriage, I became the sheriff of the house. I was critical about ev­eryone else’s performance and about my own. I didn’t see any good anywhere. I looked at our minister in town with a critical eye. When Jim talked to me about what was being done with the ministry he ran, I didn’t tell him what I thought was good about it. All I could see were the problems. I said, “Well, that is wrong, and I don’t like this, and I don’t like that.” My good ability to judge got out of hand. I set myself up as the sole determiner of right and wrong. I criticized everything and everyone. As I sat in this position, I had a great, big plank in my own eye.

The critical spirit is based in pride. How so? When we make a critical evaluation of something, we appoint ourselves as the final authority. We are setting ourselves above it. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t say that. How can this person act like that and be a Christian? Why did they do this? Why did they say that?” Before you know it, you have forgotten that you do those things, too. Why do you look at the speck in your neighbor’s eye when there is a plank in your own?

A critical spirit commonly causes depression. When you have a negative view of everyone, and all you can see are the wrongs, it is natural to become very depressed. I found myself unable to thank God for the beauty around me. I was unable to thank Him for the spiritual growth I saw in different individu­als. Instead of rejoicing in the progress my husband and I were experiencing with peo­ple in our Christian work and counseling, I saw only how much more they needed. I became increasingly miserable. Then one spring, we talked of taking a sabbatical and going to Canada for a few months. I realized that I was looking forward to the sabbatical to get myself straightened out; and the Lord said to me, “I want to straighten you out right now.”

That day, I was deeply convicted of the sin of having a critical spirit. I couldn’t share it with anyone. I knew if I tried, I would cry my heart out and not be able to finish telling them about it, so I put it down on paper. In a letter to my husband and children, I wrote: “There have been occasions in my life when God has blessed me in spite of what I know is ‘an iceberg of judgments’ resulting in bitterness of heart. Most of my Christian life I have been in Christian lead­ership, and I see this sin (a critical spirit) now as a peril in leadership. Having once prayed for discernment, I see now it needs a balance. Oswald Chambers said that discernment is given not to criticize, but to intercede. I have become a sheriff in the Christian community, in my home and marriage.”

I wrote much more than this and received nothing but love and understanding from my family. In repen­tance, I cried before the Lord in agony to have this sin removed from me and to be forgiven. Never before or since have I been so repentant.

At the time, I was leading a noon Bible study on the University of Idaho campus. We were working through the book of Micah and came to this verse:

I will bear the indignation of the Lord,

Because I have sinned against Him,

Until He pleads my case

And executes justice for me.

He will bring me forth to the light;

I will see His righteousness.

(Micah 7:9 NKJV)

I was still overwhelmed with my sin and had been thinking, “This is the way I always have been, and this is the way I always will be.” God used this verse to say to me, “No—I want to take it from you.”

I wanted to be delivered from my critical spirit, and, thank God, He did deliver me. Does that mean I have not had a critical spirit since? Yes, I have at times, but I can identify it now faster and be rid of it again by confessing it to Him as sin.

(To be continued on September 14. This post is an excerpt from Dealing with a Critical Spirit by Bessie Wilson, available at cccmbooks.org/bookstore.)

---

[1] Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2nd college ed., (1984). s.v. “critic.”