The conversation was going well.  The two men were developing quite a bond about a mutual passion – basketball.  But then it happened….  The other night I was watching one of my favorite movies about a small-town basketball team that rises up from nothing to play for and win (of course!) a state championship.  The men in the conversation were the coach and someone he was trying to help.  As I said, the chat was sailing along without a hitch as long as they were talking basketball.  However, the tone completely changed when the coach broached the topic of the other man’s failures in certain areas.  Confronted with his shortcomings, the man abruptly told the coach, “I don’t have to hear that from you….I’d like you to leave.  I’d like you to leave – now!”  He wanted nothing to do with the rebuke and correction from a friend.  I thought about that story when I read something in Psalm 141 today.  In verse 5, King David says, “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.”  In other words, David welcomed the correction of someone who would do so for his spiritual benefit, even though he used the word “smite.”  That’s an interesting word which means “to strike down with a hammer.”  Proverbs 9:8 puts it this way, “rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.”  We all need correction from time to time.  The question is, how will we handle it?  When that friend or loved one brings that fault or failure to our attention, how do we react?  Will we humbly thank them for their kindness or haughtily respond like that guy in the movie?  In his commentary on this verse, Charles Spurgeon said this: “It needs great grace to give reproofs aright, but it needs more to take them aright.  Wise men are thankful when their errors are pointed out to them; but, alas! wise men are few.”  Lord, help me to be one of those wise men.