Overcoming Fear of Criticism to Fulfill Your Purpose

Ever since you were small, someone has been telling you what you can't do. Your mother told you that you couldn't walk down the middle of the street, your father told you that you couldn't ride your bike without reflectors and your teachers told you that you couldn't run in the hallway.

During life, there are hundreds of people who not only tell us what we cannot do, but what we can't accomplish.

"You can't be a chemist. You're not analytical enough." 

"You can't be a professional singer. You're not attractive enough."

"There is no way you'll make it as a teacher. You're not patient enough."

"You must be kidding! You want to be a pastor's wife? You won't be a good role model."

Sadly, we often fear the criticism of others and when it does happen, we take it to heart. For this reason, even into adulthood, we're often waiting for someone to tell us it's OK to "cross the street" to our God-given purpose because we are afraid that if we blow it we'll look like an idiot—and then what will they say?

If God is for you, who can be against you?

Several years ago, I realized I'd been waiting for someone to encourage me to write a book. I thought if another, more successful writer validated me, then I could start moving toward the dream that God had placed in my heart. Deep down I didn't want to look foolish. One day as I browsed the bookstore for inspiration from an accomplished writer, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "Why are you looking for a leader outside yourself? Write what I have given you."

No matter who you are, or what you want to accomplish, the only leader you need to move toward your purpose is the Holy Spirit. If God is for you, who can be against you? (Romans 8:31). Which also begs the question, "Why do we fear criticism?"

Even Jesus knew when to ignore naysayers who wanted to prevent Him from accomplishing His purpose. In Luke 4:30, those in His hometown became furious when He said He was sent by God. To destroy Him, they drove Him out of town to the top of a hill so they could throw Him over a cliff. What did Jesus do? He walked through the crowd and went His way.

Because He knew who He was and who His Father was, He decided He would "cross the street" to His God-given purpose, even if no one but God agreed.

Sometimes the best way to move on to God's purpose for us is to ignore negative evaluations and comments and, just like Jesus, go merrily on our way.

Peas and carrots, rice and beans, fear of criticism and self-protection.

Just as peas and carrots, rice and beans, and peanut butter and jelly go together, the fear of criticism and self-protection are also a pair. If you fear criticism—guaranteed—you're also self-protective. But there is a high price to pay for allowing the fear of criticism and self-protection to have their way in our lives and to get hold of our minds.

Can you imagine what Christ's life on earth would have been like if He had been self-protective and feared criticism?

After being mocked by political groups, old and young men and spiteful Pharisees, He would have determined who He would associate with, what He would say in His final hours on earth; and rather than keeping His mouth shut when He was falsely accused, He would have defended Himself. When His enemies spit in His face, He would have retaliated. When they called Him names, He would have called down a legion of angels to defend Him. When they marched Him to Golgatha, He would have run. And rather than laying down His life to give His all to those He loved, the redemption of the human race would have been lost in His misguided passion of self-protection and the fear of criticism.

When we fear criticism and are overly self-protective, we miss out on being a gift to others. You see, your purpose is not just about you; it's about many people that God wants to influence and help through you. So if you struggle with criticism and self-protection, get alone with God and ask Him to give you the strength you need to move forward in your purpose in faith. And remember, you are living your life for the approval of just One.

Even the saints experienced criticism.

Throughout Scripture, men and women who were called to do something significant for God experienced criticism.

When Moses led the children of Israel through the desert, he cried out to God many times because those who followed him blamed and criticized him.

Noah's neighbors laughed and mocked him when he built the ark. Paul was labeled as overzealous, unimpressive in person and insincere. Every one of the disciples was criticized and, with the exception of John, all were criticized right to their deaths.

The point is this: If we insist on being comfortable by avoiding the criticism of others, we will not fulfill the purpose that God has for us. Even though comfort and freedom from criticism is on our checklist it's not on God's. His is a higher standard of virtue and redemption.

Remember you're in a battle.

In his book, "The Believer's Armor," John MacArthur writes, "You have all the resources, power and principles to live the Christian life. . . Even though power is available to follow godly principles, the enemy wants to withstand any good thing that God sets out to do. He will attempt to thwart God's divine purpose for your life."

As you can see, one of the main ways that Satan wants to thwart your purpose is by causing you to fear criticism. But God wants to provide you with the courage you need to say no to the fear of criticism and yes to Him. Isaiah 53:4 says that Jesus was despised, rejected and not esteemed; so He knows full well the battle that rages against us with criticism.

The question is this: Will you hold His hand, look the fear of criticism in the eye, step out in faith and live out your God-given purpose for the sake of others and for Christ?

He's waiting for you to say yes. 

Imagine if you could delete bad memories. Well, you can

A

mental adventure familiar to most students is that of cramming one’s mind with knowledge in the run up to an exam. Once the exam is done, we gleefully evacuate our brain of all this hard-won learning that’s no longer needed. Within days, we can barely remember the subject matter, let alone the details. At such moments, it’s as if we’ve forgotten on purpose.

A new study shows that it’s possible to deliberately forget things. It turns out that’s a surprisingly useful life skill

It might then come as a surprise to learn that until recently, there was little scientific evidence that people could have any deliberate influence on their rates of forgetting. But in the last few years, a small family of experimental techniques have showed that, under the right conditions, we can in fact deliberately forget things. The effects are subtle, but nonetheless suggestive: being able to forget at will would, after all, be a killer life skill.

But how does deliberate forgetting work? An exciting new study sheds light on the question.

Jeremy Manning and Kenneth Norman have been doing wonderful work on memory for years, and in a remarkably cunning experiment, they provide evidence that we forget things by discarding the mental context within which those memories were first learned.

The study is a sophisticated one, and it’s worth reading the original here (methods sections are always the best bit, FYI). But in essence, they instructed people to deliberately remember or forget words they’d just learned. And they then spied on the brain to see what happened next.

What they observed is that the brain that attempts to remember keeps active the mental context that was present during the learning – whereas the brain that tries to forget discards that context, letting go of the mental scaffolding that had (probably) supported the construction of those memories in the first place.

That context is the key to forgetting is striking, and makes intuitive sense, since it’s also the key to remembering. The most powerful memory technique of all is the “memory palace”, which is precisely an instrument that exploits the powers of spatial context to enhance memory. By imagining objects around sequences of locations (contexts), we can then recall those memories by visiting those contexts.

In more familiar territory, a fundamental rule of hosting a good party is to make sure the event transitions through several rooms or locations. Parties that unfurl all in the same space become a mess of disorganised memory; by contrast, when a party transitions through a series of differentiated contexts, such variety is soon reflected in memory, and one can recall precisely what one experienced in each location, enjoying each moment for its own recollected merits.

And of course, the quality of an experience correlates almost exactly with how well it sits in memory. Our most magical and meaningful experiences tend to include lots of doubt and suffering at the time. But such vulgar details dim in memory, and when the golden burst of meaning and friendship at the top of the tiring mountain path, for instance, is all that remains of a remembered adventure, we know that it was a wonderful time.

It’s sometimes said that we live in an age that doesn’t value memory, which would seem to be rather worrying in light of the vital role of memory in meaning. I don’t completely agree with this concern (the world’s never been more memorable), but this study on the importance of context in remembering and forgetting can attune us to at least one way in which we might do better with our experience.

Consider how we now tend to photograph the most important moments in our lives rather than just drinking them in. When we do this, we diminish our first-hand experience, confident that by having stored (and perhaps shared) a photo, we’ve logged the moment. That leaves us much less likely to directly remember the original experience, allowing the photo to do our remembering for us.

The result is that our lives become ever more biased in favour of the visual and the shareable. Vision is the most dispassionate, the least emotional, of all the modalities, and what we share inevitably biases our recollections towards moments where we seemed beautiful and happy, as opposed to those when we actually were. So our recollected lives become thinner, and less truthful.

This mode of living is what the late Doris McIlwain called Living Palely, and I highly recommend reading her call for us to rationally embrace irrational emotion in order to live, and remember, fully.

Perhaps, one day, we will all be able to remember at will the best parts of life and forget the parts that hold us back. There are techniques at our disposal to help us do both. But they require more than just changing the way we relate to our memories – they require us to tweak the way we live. And that is no small feat.

Setting Goals to Fulfill Your God-Given Purpose

When I once watched paramedics arrive at an accident within minutes, I was in awe of how quickly they had come. What if they didn't have a map? I wondered. Most likely, they would have driven in circles with a next-to-nothing chance of arriving at their destination.

Because goals are the "map” that will guide you toward your God-given purpose, without setting them you will also wander in circles without getting where you need to go.

Setting goals is not unspiritual.

Many people wrongly think, "Goal setting is unspiritual because it shows a lack of trust. It's not right to plan. Instead, people should wait for God to lead them.”

Granted, God doesn't want us to forge ahead in pride without consulting Him for direction. But neither does He want us to sit around without acting, because He's given us gifts and talents and has also said that we are called to do good works (Eph. 2: 8-10, Romans 12:4-8, Matthew 25:14-30).

Forging ahead without seeking God or sitting back and doing nothing can stem from fear or a lack of faith. However, setting goals and consulting with Him shows that you trust Him and believe that He is able to lead you while you are moving forward.

The revelation of God's will is limited and progressive — your goals may change.­

My mother talks in details. If you meet her, she probably won't just tell you she purchased fabric for her latest wall hanging. Instead, she'll tell you why she purchased the fabric, whom she was with at the store, when she did it, and how much it cost. She might say something like, "You know Mary­? She's my neighbor who is married to the plumber and she has a schnauzer. Anyway, I went shopping with her today for two hours and I purchased some fabric from the store around the corner from Judy's house. You remember Judy, right? Well, the fabric has a sort of blue background with an orange pattern running through it. I just love patterns. I make a lot of quilts using them. You should try it. Anyway, the fabric was on sale, $2.99 per yard. Great deal!"

I recently heard on a radio program that my mother is a "circular communicator”—she starts with a topic, talks in a circle while adding details and then, in conclusion, she ties all the information together in a verbal bow. In years past, I wished God was more like my mother, that He would give me more details about what He wanted me to do. I was certain that more knowledge would guarantee that I wouldn't ruin my life by stepping out of His will.

Sadly, many people are like I was. They assume that God needs to give them the entire picture of how their purpose will play out before they set goals. Because they are afraid and don't trust that God is in control of their future and purpose, they demand to hear from Him in the same way that my mother talks in details. "You will become a doctor. You will go to college at Harvard where you will study brain surgery. After that, you will move to Houston, Texas, where you will immediately become a part of the staff at M.D. Anderson. You'll stay there your entire career until you retire.”

Granted, God can do anything, but my personal experience and the experiences of biblical saints reveals that God doesn't give all the details at once while we are fulfilling our purpose. Instead, He often provides just enough information to help us move forward one step at a time. This helps our faith grow. This does not mean we shouldn't set goals. Instead, it means we need to trust Him to lead us into the unknown, and that we may need to reevaluate and change our goals as He gives us more information. This is OK. It's part of having a dynamic, collaborative and exciting relationship with Him. Can you imagine if we had the future all figured out? Life would not be as exciting.

As you progress in your purpose and God reveals more information to you, keep a dialogue open with Him, pay attention to the road signs He provides along the way and listen to Him speak to you through His Word and the Holy Spirit. Then you can be confident that He will show you when you are in—and out—of His will.

Set goals in the context of the total person that God has made you to be.

There are many ways to approach goal setting. Some people look at the big picture, then break goals down into smaller chunks, and some like to take a looser approach. However, no matter how you set goals, it's important to consider the total how God made you in the process.

God created you (and every person on planet Earth) with several parts. Like a pie with separate pieces, each part is critical to who you are; and all of these parts must be considered when you set goals.

The five parts of a person include:

• Spiritual
• Family
• Social
• Physical
• Work

If you fail to give each part the proper attention and care as you reach toward your God-given purpose, you'll experience problems.

For example, because God created you as a spiritual being, He wants you to love Him with your whole heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22: 37-40). This means that your goals must agree with your spiritual convictions. If you set goals that go against what you know God asks of you, you will become fragmented emotionally and intellectually and you will lose your joy and enthusiasm.

Additionally, because God also created you to need connection with others, if you neglect the social aspect of your life and become "all work and no play” you will become out of balance and you'll most likely experience physical, emotional, social and spiritual troubles like a character I learned about when I was seven.

I learned about Mr. Bumble from A Pickle for a Nickle, one of my favorite story books. Mr. B. had full, pink cheeks, tiny eyes, a belly like St. Nick and a total Type-A ‘tude. Thankfully, he knew his purpose and was passionate about it, but he had a problem—his life was out of balance because he failed to set his goals in the context of the total person God made him to be.

Like you and I God made Mr. Bumble with a deep need to connect with others and God. He also had a body that needed care to run efficiently and a mind that needed to solve problems. But because Mr. Bumble was all work and no play, he was often cranky and irritable.

One day when "Type-A Bumble” came home after work and discovered that his neighbor boy had taught his parrot to ask over and over, "Want a pickle for a nickle?” it pushed Mr. Bumble over the edge. His red face filled an entire story book page as he ranted and raved. If Mr. Bumble hadn't neglected so many critical areas of his life, my guess is that he would have been a little less up tight—and he would have had more fun while he was fulfilling his purpose.

There's no doubt that God wants you to fulfill your purpose. In fact, it's your duty since He has given you gifts to do so. However, be mindful not to neglect any of the five areas that make up you who you are while you do His work.

Finally, remember that the world does not rest on your shoulders. You will make mistakes in setting goals. It's OK. Because God wants to see you do His will, He will teach you the way to go as you walk in faith (Psalm 32:8).

Discovering Your God-Given Purpose

There once was a man who netted three trout from a mountain stream and carefully placed them side-by-side on a thick patch of grass. Before he removed them from the water, they were like a liquid ballet in motion. Fluid. Graceful. Vibrant. Alive.

After he netted them, it was another story.

As the trout lay on the grass, they were motionless. Their eyes were fixed. They gasped for air, and they looked — and acted — stupid. The man noticed they seemed unhappy, so he talked to them, hoping that his encouragement would change them.

“Little fish, don’t be sad. You’ll like the grass. Just try it out for a while.”

No movement. No response. No change.

A few more seconds passed. The man’s neighbor walked by. “Hey, Bob! Come and check out these fish!”

Bob sauntered over and the man explained that he was certain the fish could adjust. “I’m sure they could prosper here on the grass. Don't you agree?”

“Why not?” Bob replied. So he also tried to tell the fish it would be good if they learned to like the grass. After all, he liked the grass. Why shouldn’t they?

Still, the fish didn’t blink. They just lay there looking dumber by the second.

Finally, a little boy approached exclaimed, “What are you doing? Put them back! They can’t be all they’ve been created to be when they are out of the water.”

Finally convinced, the man carefully placed each fish back in the stream. After splashing for a split second, all three swam away effortlessly. Again, it was like a liquid ballet. What ease! What grace! What beauty!

In that moment, the man realized that no matter how long the fish lay there they would never adjust to the grass, and would never be satisfied — no matter how much he (or anyone else) told them otherwise. Even if the fish tried to convince themselves they could learn to like the grass, they never would, and they would never prosper. In fact, they would eventually die.

Do you feel like a fish out of water? Your prolonged dissatisfaction, God-given gifts, passions and the voices of others could be telling you that you were created for another purpose. And like these fish, if you feel like you are dying inside, listen up. It could be just what you need to push you into another, more satisfying ocean.

Listen to your dissatisfaction

We’ve been taught to believe that dissatisfaction is a bad thing, and that we should do everything possible to avoid it. Shove it down. Ignore it. Act like it doesn’t bother us. Take a pill. Plaster on a smile. Buy something new, or decide that misery is part of “bearing our cross.” But above all, don’t consider that God might be using it to make us uncomfortable so we’ll want to swim in another ocean where our gifts can shine.

Don’t get me wrong; dissatisfaction can be a result of spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10-12) and not an indication that we are out of God’s will. But it can also be a road sign that He has another purpose for us. So if you’re miserable in your current career or job, (and you have been for a long time), you’ve prayed, sought counsel from others, looked for guidance through Scripture, and you’re still miserable, consider that God may have another plan.

Listen to others

One of my closest girlfriends lights up when she talks about mentoring young women. She also has tremendous business sense. I’ve suggested that perhaps God may use her to start a mentoring organization or ministry. When I shared my thoughts with her, she said, “You know, I’ve heard that from lots of people.”

Just as dissatisfaction can be a road sign from God to show you your purpose, listening to what others say about your gifts can do the same; so when someone notices or comments on one of your talents, take note. God may be trying to tell you something through His people.

There are times, however, when we shouldn’t listen to what others say. But when what they say about us agrees with our passions, internal convictions, gifting and what God has already revealed to us, it can be a solid indication of our God-given purpose.

Listen to your gifts

I’ve never liked math. Whenever I come within five feet of a math problem, I break out in hives. Numbers have never been my thing and my guess is that they never will be because God created me with different gifts. Even though I can’t do math, I can write, paint, draw, sing and communicate well. These gifts are also road signs to where God is directing me.

Have you ever considered your talents and gifts? Do you get a kick out of soccer? Are you a strategic thinker? A great listener? Can you motivate others to action with your words? Are you skilled at building things? I suggest making a list of the things and activities that interest you in which you excel. You can also ask yourself, “What’s the one thing that I do better than others?” This can also clue you in to your God-given purpose.

The gifts God gives us are like little seeds planted inside us, but for them to grow we have to use them. This means that if you can’t identify which “Gift Seeds” God has given you, try doing new things that interest you. Through these new experiences, God will reveal more to you about who you are and how He has called you to serve Him.

Listen to your passions

If I could ask you what makes you angry, joyful, excited or passionate, what would you say? Take note of when your emotions are moved; these times can be a sign of your God-given purpose.

I get fired up about the godless condition of the world. When I hear about little children being abused, I get angry. When someone tells me a story about loyal love, I am deeply moved. An exquisite arrangement of words on a page fills my heart with passion. A story of someone’s heartbreak grieves me. Talking about Christ stirs me up. When coupled with my talents, these passions point in the direction of my purpose of written and spoken communication about things that deeply impact people on a spiritual and emotional level.

Pray. Ask God to show you the things that move you and make a list. And remember, He wants you to discover His purpose for you more than you do.

Lastly, consider that your purpose is not just about you; it’s about what God wants to do through you. Therefore, if you ignore or neglect your dissatisfaction, what others say about you, your gifts and your passions, you are not only betraying yourself, but betraying God; because He has called you to a purpose and wants you to walk in it — for others and for your own joy.

Also consider that since God has called you, He is completely able to reveal your purpose to you, and He will as you diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).