The Strange Desire for Correction

     When I started seminary, I had a “commuter room” on campus for a night or two. My roommate for the first night was a student from Korea who was on his final year of seminary. English was his second language, and he had learned to boldly ask native speakers to edit his papers, for he wanted to get the most out of his education and do his absolute best.

     So, since I was his roommate, he asked me to edit his papers that semester.

     Apparently, I did a pretty good job, because a few weeks later, while sitting on an outdoor bench near the dorm’s front doors, another Korean student, whom I did not know, came up to me and said, “Are you Jon? Could you edit my paper for me?” Word got around, and I quickly found an on-campus ministry as a supplier of feedback on papers. (And, wanting to be helpful, I did it for free.)

     Most of us don’t seek out correction. Our culture seems to value feedback and correction less and less as time goes on. It takes a special motivation of the heart to desire correction… and while it might seem strange in our world today, it is absolutely part of faith.

     In the Book of Proverbs, the first chapter, we find an invitation to seek out and treasure the wisdom in the rest of the book, and we also discover an invitation to “the strange desire for correction” as “Lady Wisdom” speaks:

                                You should respond when I correct you.

                                Look, I’ll pour out my spirit on you.

                                I’ll reveal my words to you.

                                I invited you, but you rejected me;

                                I stretched out my hand to you,
                                but you paid no attention.

                                You ignored all my advice,
                                and you didn’t want me to correct you.

                                                                    (Proverbs 1:23-25)

     Seeking out feedback, and even correction, is a biblical, faithful, and therefore counter-cultural, aspect of the Christian faith. The world desperately needs us to model this way of life. I covenant to do my best to both seek it, and provide it (I was asked to do this recently, and am thankful to have been asked) – and I ask you to do the same – making sure that love, grace, and humility govern both the giving and receiving of correction.

                                Continue encouraging each other
                                and building each other up,

                                just like you are doing already.                  
                                                             (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

     And maybe, just maybe, we can develop and show the world “the strange desire for correction.”