The Rhino's Spiritual Gift - Christianity Today

Leadership has a price tag; and that price tag is criticism. A leader must learn to handle criticism. Whenever we are out front, people are going to take shots at us. No leader is exempt from it. In fact, the only way to avoid criticism is by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. Mark my words, the person ministering on the cutting edge will be criticized. Therefore, a leader must have thick skin. Stuart Briscoe writes, “Qualifications of a pastor (or any Christian leader): the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros.”

Nehemiah needed thick skin and he had it. “But when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed” (Neh. 2:19 LB). Scoffing or mocking means “to utter repeatedly words of criticism.” And these critics uttered their criticisms throughout the entire building project and even after it was completed.

It is said that when Robert Fulton was building his steam engine, his wife came to him in his workshop and said, “You’ll never get that thing to work and even if you do you’ll never be able to get it out.” Well, miraculously, according to his wife, he got it to work.

The engine sat in his front yard as he worked to fit it on a boat. His wife came to him and said, “I don’t know why you are spending so much time on that thing, you’ll never get it to the river.” Well, miraculously, according to his wife, he got the steam engine attached to a boat and got it down to the river.

His wife came down to the river and said, “I don’t know why you are wasting your time, you’ll never get that thing to start.” Well, miraculously, it did start and Fulton began moving down the river. He was happy on two accounts: one, his invention worked, and, two, he left his wife back on the dock. But just then, he heard a voice calling out from the bank. It was his wife running after him saying, “You’ll never get that thing stopped. You never will.”

Nehemiah knew what Robert Fulton felt. His critics never left him alone. They continued to hound and scoff and ridicule him day in and day out. They were a constant thorn in his side.

Leaders will be criticized. It comes with the territory. So how does one react when criticism comes?

1. Talk to God about it. I remember a song from my youth. The words of the chorus were, “You can talk about me whenever you please, but I’ll talk about you when I am on my knees.” Our first response to criticism is to take it to the Lord in prayer. Never tackle the criticism alone. Give it all away to God. He is the Chief Shepherd. Allow him to take the brunt of the attack.
2. Learn from it. Sometimes there is an element of truth in the criticism. We must shake out the kernels of truth and use them to help us grow.
3. Use it to motivate you to greater action. Often when I am criticized I employ it to spur me on to greater accomplishment. I know it is my competitive nature that sparks this reaction. But I have learned that I must take the criticism through the previously mentioned steps before I employ this response.
4. Ignore it. Sometimes one must consider the source. If the critic is someone who is critical of everyone and everything, then dismiss it and move on. Henry Ironside lived by this advice: “If what they are saying about you is true, mend your ways. If it isn’t true, forget it, and go on and serve the Lord.”

Remember, people don’t build statues to the critics, only to those who withstand the criticism to accomplish their God-given dreams.

The first American steamboat took thirty-two hours to go from New York to Albany. People mocked. The horse and buggy passed the early motorcar as if it were standing still. (It usually was.) People mocked. The first electric light bulb was so dim people had to use a gas lamp to see it. They mocked. The first airplane came down fifty-nine seconds after it left the ground. People mocked. But where would we be today without those inventions? The critic is soon forgotten. The person of action is remembered.

In fulfilling God-given dreams and goals, people will discourage you and criticize you and ridicule you. That’s a fact. But to hear from Theodore Roosevelt again:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Let’s go for the victory and leave the critics standing in our dust.

Rick Ezell is pastor of Naperville Baptist Church in Naperville, Illinois. This article is excerpted from Strengthening the Pastor’s Soul (© 2003 Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved).