As Kipling said, leaders must, keep their heads when all men doubt them, yet make allowance for their doubting too. We must always be strong enough in our foundational commitments to Christ that we don’t topple every time someone questions us. Yet, we have to be humble and listen (Proverbs 19:20).
Still, no one has ever led anything without there being small critics who lob missiles from the cheap seats. If you are humble and on your knees before Christ, yet, you face a barrage of criticism, bear in mind the encouragement of President Roosevelt gave at the dedication of the Panama Canal: small minded critics are like bubbles that float down the stream.
Why, gentlemen, there never was a great feat done yet that there were not some men evil enough, small enough, or foolish enough, to wish to try to interfere with it and to sneer at those who are actually doing the work. From time to time, little men will come along to find fault with what you have done; to say that something could have been done better; that there has been some mistake, some shortcoming; that things are not really managed in the best of all possible manners, in the best of all possible worlds. They will have their say and they will go downstream like bubbles; they will vanish; butt he work you have done will remain for the ages. It is the man who does the job who counts, not the little scolding critic who thinks how it ought to have been done. President Theodore Roosevelt at the dedication of the Panama Canal. November 16, 1906
I like the balance here: Humbly considering every ‘bubble’, but strong enough to not let every ‘bubble’ topple us.