A Critical Spirit

I was reading a devotional in Spiritual Classics by Catherine Marshall (1914-1983). She spoke about how the Lord challenged her to fast from criticism for one full day. She was not to criticize anybody about anything. She realized that the world - the government, the church, individuals could apparently get along just fine without her penetrating observations. But she really didn't get what the whole fast was supposed to accomplish until mid-afternoon. She writes, "My critical nature had not corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with. What it had done was to stifle my own creativity - in prayer, in relationships, perhaps even in writing - ideas that He [God] wanted to give me."

She summarizes the things God was teaching her:

1. A critical spirit focuses us on ourselves and makes us unhappy. We lose perspective and humor.
2. A critical spirit blocks the positive creative thoughts God longs to give us.
3. A critical spirit can prevent good relationships between individuals and often produces retaliatory criticalness.
4. Criticalness blocks the work of the Spirit of God: love, good will, mercy.
5. Whenever we see something genuinely wrong in another person's behavior, rather than criticize him or her directly, or - far worse - gripe about him behind his back, we should ask the Spirit of God to do the correction needed.

Selah!