The danger of jumping to hasty conclusions
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We need to be very careful about jumping to conclusions before we know all of the facts. I am reminded of the danger of doing just that by the following little story.
A lady invited several friends to a mushroom steak dinner. When her maid opened a can of mushrooms, she discovered a slight scum on the top.
Since the guests were expected momentarily, the lady of the house suggested, "Give the dog a little, and if he eats it, it's probably all right."
The dog liked it, eagerly begging for more, so the dinner was quickly completed.
After the main course, the maid came in to serve the dessert, but her face was ashen white. She whispered into her employer's ear, "Ma'am, the dog's dead. There's only one thing to do. We need to call a doctor immediately," and the lady did just that.
Sometime later, after the doctor had left, and the guests were reclining in various stages of recovery from the use of the stomach pump, the lady called the maid and asked, "Where's the poor dog now?"
Quick came the answer, "Out on the front steps, ma'am, where he fell after the car hit him."
We have all been guilty at one time or another of drawing a hasty conclusion before we knew all of the facts.
We looked at a situation, made a judgment, and jumped to a hasty conclusion, only to discover to our l embarrassment that because we didn't have all the facts, we arrived at a faulty conclusion.
The three Jewish tribes, (Ruben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh) wanted to live east of the Jordan River on land they had already conquered.
Moses immediately assumed they had selfish motives and were trying to avoid helping the others fight for the land they had conquered across the river.
But Moses was wrong, and he jumped to a wrong conclusion because he didn't realize the underlying motivation for the tribes' desire to live on the east side of the Jordan had nothing to do with an unwillingness to join the rest of the tribes to preserve the conquered land on the other side of the river.
When dealing with people, it is important to know all of the facts before we draw a hasty conclusion—the kind that leaves egg on our face.
Don't do as Moses did, who avoided taking the time to learn all the facts before he made up his mind.
Be careful not to automatically assume that someone's motives are wrong, even when their plans sound suspicious. Always seek all of the information before you draw your conclusion, for in doing so, you will save yourself a lot of embarrassment.
A few years ago, gifts to the prairie Bible Institute of Alberta, Canada, declined from a certain geographical area. At that time, the school's president, Dr. Maxwell, had undergone two operations for cataracts, one on each eye.
When a representative of the school was visiting in that particular area, he was approached by a donor asking, "Why was Dr. Maxwell riding around in two 'cadillacs?'"
Jumping to conclusions had changed 'cataracts' to 'cadillacs' and caused people to withhold their gifts.
As someone once said, "A person can save himself from many hard falls by refraining from jumping to conclusions." That's good advice that we all need to follow each and every day of our lives.
 | Tom Crenshaw serves as Connections Pastor of the New Monmouth Baptist Church (non denominational) where he previously served as a three year interim.He has been married to Jean for almost 50 years, and they have four children, all of whom are teachers.Tom loves perennial gardening, umpiring high school baseball, coaching baseball and football, fishing for small mouth bass, rooting for his favorite team, the Cleveland Indians, and listening to ‘real’ country music, the classic kind. Learn More » |
More on Conflict & Criticism
- Unique problems grow you uniquely (by Richard Blackaby)
- They tried to quiet Charlie Kirk—but the gospel still speaks (by Bob Russell)
- The power of an unoffendable heart (by Tom Crenshaw)
- How did Jesus deal with animosity? (by Chris Bolinger)
