Though writing in itself is often a solitary work, it shouldn’t be done in isolation. As writers, we need a team of people to sharpen, encourage, carry, and guide us. I don’t mean a hired team to run your social media accounts, manage your website, or reply to comments. I mean friends and mentors, supporters, and loving editors. We need these kinds of people in our corner to keep us accountable, lift up our gaze, and grow us in our craft. 

Have you ever needed to speak truth into a friend’s life, but feared their reaction too much to speak? In those moments I need to love my friends more than I fear them, and that I need to learn how to speak truth with gentleness and with the power of Scripture.

Do you regularly barrage yourself with self-condemnation? Here’s not only how we can combat such destructive self-talk, but also why those words of self-condemnation are wrong.

Our natural tendency is to be defensive when others point out our faults, our failings, our sins, or where we have gone wrong either in thinking or action. However, this is not the godly reaction. We must learn to properly discern and handle criticism when it comes. Here’s how.