Few things are more destructive than a critical spirit. Join us as we unravel the complexities of criticism, revealing how it can forge paths to personal growth or, when misused, create barriers in relationships. There's an important line between well-meaning feedback and damaging jabs. Our candid discussion serves as a reminder to tread carefully on the tightrope of critique, aiming always to uplift rather than undercut. Whether you're the giver or receiver of criticism, this episode promises to equip you with a renewed perspective on feedback and set the stage for a year marked by kindness and self-improvement.
Few things are more destructive than a critical spirit. Join us as we unravel the complexities of criticism, revealing how it can forge paths to personal growth or, when misused, create barriers in relationships. There's an important line between well-meaning feedback and damaging jabs. Our candid discussion serves as a reminder to tread carefully on the tightrope of critique, aiming always to uplift rather than undercut. Whether you're the giver or receiver of criticism, this episode promises to equip you with a renewed perspective on feedback and set the stage for a year marked by kindness and self-improvement.
All right, good evening everybody and happy new year. Welcome to the first 2024 edition of the Jordan and Kristen record show. We hope you had a great new year. Today's topic is going to be having a critical spirit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that should be fun, all right.
Speaker 1:so before we get to that Kristen, why don't you pray for everybody?
Speaker 2:Thank you, jesus, that you are the author and finisher of our faith. Lord, we look to you, for everything we need From your hand is everything we need. God, there's nothing apart from you. Apart from you, we can do nothing, but in you we live and move and have our being. Thank you, lord. We pray that this year we started off on the right foot, focusing on you with every breath, knowing it all comes from you and it's all for you. In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 1:I like that. We can do nothing apart from you, and apart from you we can do nothing, and that is an example of a critical spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, how's that for an introduction, actually?
Speaker 2:I don't think. If you replay the tape, I did misspeak, but I didn't say that. I think there was another word in there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so check this out. Why are we doing today's episode on a critical spirit? Well, because I think sometimes God sends us messages. So the other day, kristen and I had this Christmas party at our house and we invited some friends over and some of them were nice enough to give us gifts. And one of our good friends, steve who's one of the few people we know actually listens to this show because he actually quotes it back to us gives us this book, gives me this book called A Critical Spirit. And when someone gives you a book like that, you think what are they trying to tell me? And he insists it wasn't meant for me specifically.
Speaker 1:And Steve's a great guy, by the way. We love Steve so much and we're so thankful for this gift. Seriously, but it does get you to think. And then we go to church on Sunday, right, and all these guys are always like jockeying for Kristen's attention and Kristen she's like oh, you're so kind. You guys have the spirit of compliments, unlike my husband who has the spirit of criticism. Haha, just kidding, that is actually what she said.
Speaker 2:It was a joke, it was a joke. And then I said no, I backtracked.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we're going to talk seriously about the spirit of criticism and what it is and what it isn't, and why it's such an important topic. So, kristen, why don't you start?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I would like to say you just criticized my prayer. That's even worse than regular criticism.
Speaker 1:I was doing it just to illustrate a point.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say, though, just to clarify You're very good about not criticizing me personally, and I do appreciate that.
Speaker 1:You're the most perfect thing. There's not much to criticize. But I do know since you're kind of punting it back to me here I do know that I will admit I have a tendency to be hypercritical of people and I think part of that is my gifting believe it or not, as a lawyer and as somebody who's involved in politics and things like that is to identify problems, identify inefficiencies and try to come up with solutions, and I think what happens is the enemy tries to a lot of times, pervert your gifts and repurpose your gifts for his purpose.
Speaker 1:And so he'll take something that God intended for good and he'll kind of lean on it and he'll twist it a little bit. And doesn't have to be that much, it's not like even 180 degrees. Sometimes it's just just enough of a nudge to get you off of the centerline and before you know it, you're not being critical in a helpful way, in other words, in a manner designed to build another person up. You're being critical in a hurtful way, which is to say you're trying to you're criticizing someone to build yourself up at their expense.
Speaker 2:That's. That's a very good way to put it. And when we're talking about this, at first I was thinking well, what can I offer? Because I can tell you plenty of things that are my, you can offer.
Speaker 1:What is it Like to live with me?
Speaker 2:You know, I can tell you, we can sit here and I can tell you plenty of things, and I start going through a list of things that I do wrong. But I thought, you know, the spirit of criticism is not one of my big ones. And then I thought to myself wait a minute. I may not be critical of other people as much, but I'm super hyper critical of myself.
Speaker 1:Very true.
Speaker 2:So that was like oh, light bulb moment. So, in one way or another, whether you're hyper critical of other people and those people I should really I think need to look more at themselves. But those of us who are more hyper critical of ourselves need to stop comparing our weaknesses to other people's strengths and say God, you made me unique, you made me who I am, and I don't need to look at everything under a microscope. I need to celebrate who you made me. Now, does that mean you shouldn't correct certain things? Absolutely not, whether it's yourself or if you're in a position to correct someone else for something, but you do it in a loving way and you do what I love.
Speaker 2:A shout out to the Mary Kay community of the Velvet Hammer is what the wonderful, brilliant businesswoman Mary Kay used to do. You know what the Velvet Hammer is? Okay, so the velvet hammer is when she would have to correct somebody and her staff or in anything as a woman in business, she would have sandwich her correction with a compliment. So first she would say here's what you're doing great, I love this, I love that about you. And affirmation. Then she would Say this is what we need to fix, and then she would follow it up with another compliment. I just love that, because someone told me one time there's no such thing as corrective criticism. You know that.
Speaker 1:There's no such thing as corrective criticism. I didn't know.
Speaker 2:I never heard that yeah, it's actually just, criticism is criticism. So, basically, correction is something totally different and it's important that we correct things in ourselves and if we're in a position to have to. You know, lend help to other people can be helpful, but it's the way in which you do it and the lens if you I think you need to always have a lens of looking for the good in other people, don't you think?
Speaker 1:definitely, in fact the book and we're not collecting royalties for this it's just called critical spirit confronting the heart of a critic by June hunt, I just want to read. She identifies nine distinct differences between a critical spirit and a caring spirit. I just want to read this very briefly here. That's pretty good. So she says A critical spirit is one that condemns the person as well as the action. A caring spirit condemns the action but not the person a difference.
Speaker 1:A critical spirit ridicules others. A caring spirit encourages others. A critical spirit assumes the worst without first hearing from the accused. A caring spirit assumes the best while waiting to hear from the accused actually somebody, you know what last night. Actually, a critical spirit tears others down without seeing their unmet needs. A caring spirit builds others up according to their needs. That's something I said earlier. A critical spirit reacts pridefully when given advice. A caring spirit responds positively when given advice. So it's not just, it's not critical spirit is just criticizing someone else, is actually spirit you have in you when you Receive advice, mothers. Critical spirit lacks mercy towards others. A caring spirit extends mercy towards others. A critical spirit publicly criticizes those who have wrong them without going to them first. A caring spirit privately confronts those who wrong them by going to them first. A critical spirit makes judgments based on appearances. A caring spirit make judgments based on facts.
Speaker 1:Notice not that you're not judgment, not Not that you don't exercise judgment at all but, you that judgments based on facts and I'm drawing distinction between exercising judgment and being judgmental- right and then, lastly, she says a critical spirit focuses on the faults of others, a caring spirit, focus on your own faults.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't even know that it's necessary to focus on your own faults. There's something. But you know, I said the other day christen and I think I put this on Facebook. I don't if I said to directly. I said I am one of the worst people in the world, honest to God I am, at pretending to like somebody who I don't I'm just being real here and I might say was Christians were supposed to love everybody. It's like Loving and liking, first of all, two different things and secondly, it's just difficult to like some people. But I have, through this sort of thought exercise and faith exercise, I'm doing my best these days To try to find in every person at least something I like about them, even if it's just the most loads. Some person I'm not talking about like Historically evil person like Adolf Hitler, but just kind of people you encounter in your day to day life that I always try to find something I like about that person. I almost always can, and I think that's part of what is critical to breaking the critical spirit.
Speaker 2:God did not put us together by accident, for many, many different reason, and one of which is we've always said is I'm a very sensitive person. So you Don't even haven't even realized, until you met me, things that could be taken critical. I mean, I can tell you so many times when it's all about that delivery, when somebody came to me and was critical of something and it just like crushed my spirit and somebody else the same exact topic or something like that. But the way they made me feel, I felt lifted from our conversation, I felt encouraged. I can't describe it. It's just amazing how it just the zone you're going into with it, the intention and, like you say, making people feel important.
Speaker 2:Everyone has a sign around their neck, invisible sign, that says make me feel important and if you can Compliment, I make it my mission. I'm not saying this look at me, look at me. I'm just saying that this is one of the strengths that I feel like God is giving me. Everywhere I go, I love making people feel important. Everywhere I go, whether it's the gas station or anything, I try to make it my mission to compliment. It's a sincere compliment. You know, if I, if I don't like someone's outfit, I'm not gonna say, oh, that's a wonderful outfit. You know there's there's things you can find about people, but it's a sincere compliment that you can give every person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in the last minute or two it would behoove us to observe that the heart of a critical spirit, I believe, is the spirit of pridefulness. I'm better than this person. I'm smarter than this person. I have it all put together and figured out. This person doesn't. And that is the deadliest of the sins, I think. It's the sin from which all others spring. You know, the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, and there's certainly that. But it also says pride comes before the fall. And you can read through Proverbs what it has to say about pride. You know pride has destroyed more teams, failed more businesses, wrecked, more marriages than every other, every other bad habit on the planet. I mean, if you can, even we can really go off on this, maybe we should do a topic on it. But I mean, pride is at the heart of you know, bad investments is at the heart of adultery.
Speaker 2:Satan fell because of his pride.
Speaker 1:Satan fell because of what? There you go there. It is right there. So you know, and if you're dealing with a critical spirit and it's something I've had to deal with that's really at the heart of it and it also prevents you from learning, because pride is antithetical to humility and humility is I have something to learn, okay, and so if you're being prideful, you're not, you're not learning, and then you're not growing and you're failing all sorts of ways.
Speaker 2:I'll give you one. Sometimes I'm critical of critical people.
Speaker 1:And now you're being very self critical, so knock it off All right in the last minute here, when you pray for everybody thank you, jesus, pray for pray for a great, great new year for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, thank you, Jesus, for this year. Two thousand twenty four, oh my gosh, may this be the year of explosive growth in you. God, you will just move the mountains, god before us, lord, the things that are in our path, that we just see no way around. God, I just pray right now, in the mighty name of Jesus, that you, just you, just knock down every stronghold, knock down anything that is in the way of the destiny that you have for us, and you're amazing love. We honor you, we praise you in Jesus name.
Speaker 1:Great job, as always, sweetie. Any New Year's resolutions, the last few seconds.
Speaker 2:Oh, I gotta, I gotta get down and get along with God and really map those out. I love to have a word for the year.
Speaker 1:That's great, sweetie, that's great Listen. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you again next week. As always, until next time, be blessed and be a blessing Bye.