“You are coding your clients’ time incorrectly.”

“There is a better way to address this problem with your toddler.”

“This expense is not allowed…”

“You are manipulating your husband…”

“The word you are using does not mean what you think it means.”

“Reconnecting with this person is a bad idea.”

“Be careful about how you approach this topic with your teenager.”

Most of us do not enjoy correction. I will be the first to admit, I personally struggle the moment I realize that someone is correcting me in some way. Why? It’s probably that I am an adult, but when someone tells me that I am doing something wrong, or simply extends a caution, it makes me feel like a child. I begin to feel inadequate or incapable and I immediately become defensive.

Do you feel that way too?

What I often fail to remember is that correction, most of the time, is for my benefit. It is to set me on the right course, to help me get the results I want, or what others in authority expect from me.

But my attitude and pride often get in the way. Or maybe I do not like or respect the person who is correcting me.

That’s foolishness of course.

Proverbs 12:1 (NIV) states, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.”

Yikes! That’s strong wording…he who hates correction is stupid??

If we appreciate knowledge and understanding, we must also appreciate correction.

Correction (or a rebuke, warning, chastening, instruction, or even discipline) leads to knowledge.

And if we love (value or appreciate) knowledge, we must learn to love correction.

Otherwise, we become brutish, (wasteful, consuming, foolish,) like unthinking, unreasoning animals.

Scripture tells us that it is outright stupid to hate correction because it benefits us with valuable knowledge.

It also gives us understanding. (Prov 15:32)

And honor, instead of shame. (Prov 13:18)

Furthermore, it is rewarded. (Prov 13:13)

And shows others the way to life. (Prov 10:17)

It’s stupid of us to hate correction. If we can get past our initial response, the tendency to defend or dismiss, and recognize the valuable knowledge that we gain from correction, along with understanding and honor, we can expect greater rewards and show others the path to life.

Let’s stop being so stupid!

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We all need advice from time to time. We need people in our lives that can speak into dilemmas or challenges we must confront to give us insight, a different perspective, or direction. Proverbs talks a lot about the importance of having advisors and asserts:

 

“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed” (Prov 19:20).

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed. (Prov 19:20).

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In Managing Oneself, Peter F. Drucker states that some people need advisors to force themselves to think, “then they can make decisions and act on them with speed, self-confidence, and courage (pg 20). That’s me. I often need someone who knows the right questions to ask to help me order my thoughts and priorities without necessarily trying to give me “the answer.”

But how do we know who to listen to? How do we recognize someone who we can trust to give us wise counsel?

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A few nights ago, I had trouble getting to sleep…I mean TROUBLE! Everything was wrong…the room was too warm, my pillow too hard, the covers too heavy, and my mind- I just couldn’t shut it down. It was speeding into overdrive imagining every possible thing that could go wrong. Yes, that old frenemy “fear” had come to visit.

I’m not sure why I was so anxious that night- it had been a great day—  but as I was winding down, I started to feel uneasy. “It’s too much….” The day was too much, my commitments were too much, the news was DEFINITELY too much…and before you know it, I was laying in bed tossing and turning to the sound of complete chaos in my mind while watching precious minutes speed by.

I tried praying– that’s what most Christians do (understandably) when we start to panic, but I couldn’t!! There was so much noise in my head that I could not organize a single, coherent sentence!!

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