King David gives some excellent advice in the following
verse about accepting constructive criticism:
Let the godly strike me!
It will be a kindness!
If they correct me, it is soothing medicine.
Don’t let me refuse it.
Ps. 141:5a (NLT)
If you’ve ever learned from a tough critique, the advice in this verse probably sounds familiar. Since a critique is constructive criticism, we can easily apply the instruction found here to how we should respond to a critique, especially when it’s a hard one.
- Although a tough critique hits hard (strikes us), when a fellow Christian (one who seeks to be godly) critiques our work, they do it with the intent to help us improve our writing (a kindness).
- Their corrections, when applied, are like soothing medicine that “heals” our writing.
It can be tempting to refuse the advice in a hard critique. It’s not easy to see “our baby” picked apart. But this verse is very straightforward: don’t refuse it. We may have to set it aside and come back to it after the emotions have washed over us, but when we look at the advice with a clear head and give it serious consideration, even a critique that seemed hateful at first glance usually has something beneficial in it.