When Amy and I were at the church planting assessment center, I heard a very helpful quote related to people criticizing and talking about you. If you’re like most people, you don’t like to have others speak ill of you. And so one of our evaluators said, “Just imagine what they would say if they knew the whole truth?”

I thought, “Wow, he’s right.” Folks may or may not be accurate in their assessment of you, but what if they really knew the motives behind your often self-serving, self-propagating heart? And if they were wrong on X, aren’t you glad they don’t know and talk about Y? Fortunately they don’t know all the whole truth about you.

From a person who can get overly upset when folks misinterpret, misunderstand, speak ill of me-whether it’s true, half-true, or not true at all-I found this a very helpful perspective.

Here’s a related post by C.J. Meheney about the gospel and taking criticism. He uses an example from Martin Luther and another present day scholar. I highly recommend checking it out.