{"id":200,"date":"2008-04-30T09:56:25","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T15:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/?p=200"},"modified":"2011-03-10T21:12:54","modified_gmt":"2011-03-11T03:12:54","slug":"accepting-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/accepting-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Be an Offering &#8211; Accepting Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.  &#8211; Hebrews 12:10-12<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lately it seems as though God is really working on my heart in a lot of areas.\u00a0  He&#8217;s working on my heart to convict me to have a strong yearning for prayer and time spent with Him.\u00a0  He&#8217;s working on my heart to have a compassionate spirit towards every one I come in contact with.\u00a0  And He&#8217;s working on my heart through many people I love and trust to make me a better leader.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, I was gently challenged in how I could improve some areas of ministry to make things better.\u00a0  To be honest, I&#8217;m not quite used to that yet, although I&#8217;m very grateful.\u00a0  In previous ministry experiences I was used to being free to do what I needed to do and then only being challenged about something <strong>after <\/strong>the negative consequences had already happened.\u00a0  If I would have been gently disciplined in these areas <strong>before<\/strong> certain things happened, I think those consequences would have turned out much differently!<\/p>\n<p>So, how do you accept criticism, especially criticism that is constructive and meant for your benefit?\u00a0  Do you get angry and try to justify what you&#8217;re doing, or do you say, &#8220;Thanks so much for caring enough about me to prevent negative consequences and to direct me towards many more positive ones!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Take some time today and thank God for the discipline He&#8217;s doing in your life, either through His Word or through other people.<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 5px 5px 0;float:left;height:50px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/accepting-criticism\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"595\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-offerings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1369,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/1369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}