Christians are people whose ultimate ambition is to embody the life and teachings of Jesus – a high aspiration for sure.

The loftiness of this goal means that the Christian life, in this life anyway, will never be about arriving, but about journey and progress.

Sometimes along this journey we get off track, we get turned around, disoriented, or just stuck. In these situations the witness, challenge, inspiration, and example of other Christians – past and present – is just what we need to rediscover our bearings, get back on course, and take our next step towards the goal.

Sometimes however, our best gifts come from our Christian and non-Christian critics. Sometimes being called a “hypocrite” could be a great opportunity to discover ways that we can better align the life we live with the faith we claim; being called “ignorant” could be a challenge to love God better with all our minds; being called a “fundamentalist” could invite us to examine how our thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions towards others could better express the love that God showed us on the cross; being called a “liberal” could be a bid for us to examine our lives in the light of the holy and set-apart life we are called to live.

Managing or even responding to the criticisms of others cannot be the things that we navigate by, but sometimes they can help us find our bearings, encourage us to refocus on our true north – Jesus – and keep on sailing.