I read a passage awhile back that immediately stuck with me. It’s from Seth Godin in his book Tribes. He says that we fail to try important things, not because of fear of failure, but because of fear of criticism. The fear of criticism, not failure, is often what keeps us tied to our chairs.

This is a very helpful observation. Doing anything of value invites criticism into your life. We must understand true and unfair criticism if we are to press on towards our good goals.

First, I have always found true criticism to be a much more painful than unfair criticism. True criticism is a wound, but a wound that, generally speaking, heals properly. We often are blind to our greatest faults — and true criticism cuts like a scalpel, clean and true. And the cleanest cuts are the ones that can be sown with ease.

Although true criticism is much harder to hear at first, unfair criticism can be be maddening if we let it. Unfair criticism is usually wrong and blown out of proportion, but that IS the reality for the critic.

One time we had a woman walked into our church service and called it a disgrace because we were wearing jeans,  and had a band not an organist. She said it was just like being in a bar.  That was unfair. But for her that is all she could see. In her mind we are a disgrace. And I can’t change that. Her criticism becomes her reality. Every criticism is like this: if you have something against someone that is how you will come to see them.

And we can’t let people’s perception about us deter us from our good goals. We must place our identity wholly on who God thinks we are, not on what people think we are. So don’t let the critics keep you from your good ambitions, but don’t dismiss them altogether, because in some criticism there is healing.