If you’ve never had a “performance review,” you may not know what it’s like to come face to face with how a manager or your colleagues view you and your work. I came away from a review once with a list of 15 areas in which I needed to improve. Quite an eye-opener!
Yet, because the needed corrections were presented to me in such a Christly manner of frankness, earnest caring for my progress as well as the well-being of the organization, and an honest assessment of my performance, I took them to heart and began making the needed corrections. I was instantly blessed.
When giving us the gospel of love, Jesus showed how important it also was to tell others when they were headed in a wrong direction. Think of the Pharisees, or those moneychangers in the temple selling their wares.
Think of Jesus’ disciples when they were caught napping in the garden when he urged them to stay alert and pray, or when he admonished Martha, one of Lazarus’ sisters, for being more concerned about worldly things and not careful enough about her spiritual needs.
Think of when Jesus bluntly told a crowd of eager repeat visitors to his sermons that they were coming for the loaves and fishes instead of earnestly seeking the spiritual understanding they needed to improve their lives.
All the admonishing and rebuking Jesus did, he did out of a pure love for those he addressed and a clear understanding of their potential to rise above the poor performance of a human selfhood to increasingly demonstrate their innate, always present and always perfect spiritual nature.
Then there was the woman who corrected Jesus when he at first refused to heal her daughter. He had said to her, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Her response? “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (Matthew 15:26, 27). Jesus—valuing the faith and frankness this woman expressed—immediately changed his course and healed her daughter instantly.
Mary Baker Eddy touches on “merited rebuke” in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she says: “If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the rebuke and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are ‘not as other men’?” And she adds, “During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke” (pp. 8–9).
Are we listening with Christlike receptivity when someone lovingly, honestly, mercifully, and rightfully points to an action or direction that we need to correct? Are we experiencing the healing and spiritual progress this Christly correcting can bring? Such a performance review may move us forward in wonderful and unexpected ways.
