Fasting from Criticalness

The Lord continues to deal with me about m critical spirit, convicting 

me that I have been wrong to judge any person or situation:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge 

others, you will be judeged, and with the measure you use, it will be 

measured to you.  (Matt 7:1-2; NIV)

One morning last week He gave me an assignment: for one day I was 

to go on a "fast" from criticism.  I was not to criticize anybody about 

anything.

Into my mind crowded all the usual objections.  "But then what happens 

to value judgments?  You Yourself, Lord, spoke of 'righteous judgement.'  

How could society operate without standards and limits?"

All such resistance was brushed aside.  "Just obey Me without question-

ing:  an absolute fast on any critical statements for this day."

As I pondered this assignment, I realized there was an even humorous 

side to this kind of fast.  What did the Lord want to show me?

The experiment

For the first half of the day, I simply felt a void, almost as if I had been 

wiped out as a person.  This was especially true at lunch with my 

husand, Len, my mother, son Jeff, and my secretary Jeannie Sevigny, 

present.  Several topics came up (school prayer, abortion, the ERA 

amendment) about which I had definite opinions.  I listened to the 

others and kept silent.  Barbed comments on the tip of my tongue 

about certain world leaders were suppressed.  In our talkative family 

no one seemed to notice.

Bemused, I noticed that my comments were not missed.  The federal 

government, the judicial system, and the institutional church could 

apparently  get along fine without my penetrating observations.  But still 

I didn't see what this fast on criticism was accomplishing--until 

mid-afternoon.

For several years, I had been praying for on talented young man whose 

life had gotten sidetracked.  Perhaps my prayers for him had been too 

negative.  That afternoon, a specific, positive vision for my life was 

dropped into my mind with God's unmistakable hallmark on it--joy.

Ideas began to flow in a way I had not experienced in years.  Now it was 

apparent what the Lord wanted me to see.  My critical nature had not 

corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with.  

What it had done was to stifle my own creativity--in prayer, in 

relationship, perhaps even in writing--ideas that He wanted to give me.

Last Sunday night in a Bible study group, I told of my Day's Fast 

experiment.  The response was startling.  Many admitted that 

criticalness was the chief problem in their offices, or in their marriages, 

or with their teenage children.

                                                                Catherine Marshall, A Closer Walk

Who is Catherine Marshall?  Catherine Marshall was the wife of famed, 

Presbyterian minister and preacher, Peter Marshall.  She came into the 

public after his death when she published a memoir about him, 

A Man Called Peter.  Catherine went onto write a large number of 

books and eventually became a publisher.  She lived from 1914 to 1983.

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