Coached by Criticism

I recently saw an interview with a pastor who was being asked about criticism. He turned to a quote from Billy Graham which went something like this, "Turn your critics into coaches."

Coaches are people we listen to. Most of the time we respect them and their opinions. So how does that compare to critics? Aren't critics the opposite of what a coach should be? Well that just shows you how prideful we are, myself included. We get so offended every time someone says something negative to us that we don't take the time to consider if that critique is true. Lets look at it from the coach side of things, if a coach sees a player doing something wrong that could hurt the team, the coach is going to correct that. He isn't just going to say, "Good job Billy, keep it up." He's going to correct what ever we are doing wrong.

So whenever we face criticism, turn it into a coaching opportunity. Yes, I know there are people that are too critical out there and are always going to say negative things even if they are false. But we should take what these people say and search them for truth so that we can learn from our mistakes and move on.