Acting Like The Tail

"The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom."
Deuteronomy 28:13

I don't know everything about life. I'm a Christian woman with opinions and some life experience to go with it, that's all. But I'm also a writer, so there is one thing I have learned, and that is criticism can be good for you.

Recently a friend of mine attended a Christmas program at her church, which considers itself especially gifted in their music ministry. My friend returned home and proceeded to give the program a less-than-favorable review. She never said it was terrible; in fact, she listed a number of positive aspects about the performance. Actually, she never really complained about the performance, but rather the sound quality.

In case you hadn't noticed lately... lots of Christians live in a bubble where everything is (fake) flowery and wonderful and there is no room for improvement because, after all, they've arrived!

Her criticism, ironically enough, was immediately met with... more criticism. One churchgoer told her she was being unnecessarily harsh and how dare she put down something the Lord clearly wrote and anointed?!? Surely, if GOD wrote and anointed it, it was perfect. Her pastor even got angry and insisted on speaking with her husband about my friend's conduct. A woman with a viewpoint - nope, can't have that either in the house of God!

As an author, I've gotten some great reviews, and some bad reviews. No doubt, the bad reviews sting. Just being the type of person I am, I got pretty ticked off about it at first. And as a staff writer at Infuze Magazine some years ago, I wrote reviews as part of my job there. Say the wrong thing, and people are ready to string you up - even the REALLY happy Christian people.

All of that taught me a few things about how to live life.
I learned, first and foremost, that being closed off to criticism is a little thing we call PRIDE. I know I don't read my Bible as often as I should, but I do know God hates pride. Pride says "I'm above it all" when, according to Jesus, we're beneath it all, and without His grace and His blood to clean us off and wipe us down, we're nuthin'. Jesus made us spotless in God's eyes, as far as sin is concerned. That doesn't mean we have it all figured out; if we DID, God wouldn't have left the Bible behind to guide us.

Which brings me to my second point - we are called to be the "head" and not the "tail." Meaning, we are supposed to lead. You see it too often in Christian music, artists imitating the culture instead of revolutionizing it. We're way behind, ironically, in leading. YES, God can write and anoint a Christmas program. YES, God can write and anoint a book. That doesn't always mean we write/perform/interpret it perfectly. God's perfect will is flowing through imperfect human hands. We will not always get it right.

If we cannot step back, take a long, hard look at ourselves and suck it up and admit that maybe we could have done something better, then WE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE TAIL.

The world expects more from us. There's something wrong if we blow them off and opt to believe that we are beyond reproach. If we want to be the head, we have to act like the head, and accept that sometimes we miss the mark and act like the tail.

The only person who ever "arrived" was Jesus. And if you think you or your church is perfect... then you have some more work to do. Pin It