Dear Friends,
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?"
Quickly 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
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." You
Don't Have to Go It Alone, Leslie B. Flynn, p.126
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.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
P.S. "Some people take no mental exercise
apart from jumping to conclusions." Harold Acton
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