a critic's voice

If you are looking for a negative opinion on someone/something, you will surely find it.

There are critics everywhere, some build their lives on writing articles de-facing or de-valuing others. To some it's more like a hobby, spread their negative words on to everyone they come in contact with. There are things that leave a bad taste in our mouths, I've had my share of experiences that I wouldn't wish on others, and I've even shared those experiences before to try to save someone else the trouble. Not gonna pretend I've never shared a negative opinion before in my life, but that's not quite what I want to write about.

When/if there is a subject or a person that you don't know directly or aren't sure quite where you stand on something, I would suggest that you not begin building the foundation of your opinion on the voice of critics. This may be difficult. The critics are often the ones who shout the loudest, who want most desperately to make their case known and heard. You might have to block them out. But the only way to truly know what you think of something is to see the heart of it. And the "heart" of something is most likely not going to be accurately represented by someone who is criticizing.

I have read articles where someone takes one single sentence a pastor or leader said and builds an entire theoretical debate over how heretical that statement is and how, due to that one error, everything else they say for the rest of their lives should be discredited. (And often times that one sentence is taken completely out of context.)

What if God did that to us? What if we said or did one thing wrong and therefore the rest of our life was discredited, meaningless. Scary thought. God can and will use imperfect people. The entire Old Testament shows us that.

All of this is not to say that you should turn a blind eye to something that doesn't line up with the Word. Please, PLEASE, continue to test what you hear, take it to the Lord, compare to Scripture, ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. There are legitimate things out there that should not just be swallowed without question.

But be wary of starting out forming your opinions based on the voice of the ranting critics out there.

And that is all.

[Ok, that is not all... I just hit publish two minutes ago and I feel the need to explain myself better. As believers we are called to a standard, there are ways to go about confronting someone on issues, there are things we are to speak out against. That is not what I am defining as "critical" here. What I would call a critic is someone with a personal vendetta against someone else that is not built on truth or love or bringing people back to the gospel, but rather on spreading their own agenda and dissention among others. Hope that clarification helps...]