Have you ever jumped to a conclusion only to feel red-faced and kind of foolish later?

Yeah, me too.

Usually, the conclusions I jump to are not the happy kind. They make me panicky. They make me reach for more chocolate than I should. They make me hound my husband with “Babe, I feel miserable” conversations. I’m one of those worst-case scenarios type people.

So, a few weeks ago when a friend sent me a text which seemed to have some underlying tension, I read the message and did what I do best: I didn’t just jump to a negative conclusion, I pole vaulted really, really high to an assumption. And when I landed, it wasn’t a pleasant, cushioned fall. I fell into a hard pit of fear, anxiety and panic.

A jumble of thoughts raced through my mind as I read the message my friend left for me.

I should never have said that.

She misunderstood me.

I’m never going to open my mouth ever again.

She thinks I’m a terrible person.

She probably hates me.

I let those thoughts run through my mind like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

I marinated in those thoughts and slept fitfully that night.

About 24 hours passed and I heard from my friend again.

Turns out, the seemingly “tense” message she left me was nowhere near anything I’d dreamed (or “nightmared”) up. She was simply clarifying something I’d said earlier with the purpose of encouraging me in one of my pursuits.

I’d taken her innocuous words and assigned a cold tone to them so they dripped of tension. I’d read between the lines when the actual lines were the only thing I should have read. I’d lost sleep over a message that was meant to be affirming.

Perhaps I’m not alone in this.

Maybe you’re thinking: Hey, me too. I’ve done this to myself way too often.

It would be fairly easy for me to say, “Let’s not jump to conclusions” and then neatly conclude this post.

But let’s be real. That’s not going to happen easily.

So, what can people like you and me do?

As an emotional pole-vaulter myself (and that’s the only kind of pole vaulting I’ve ever done with under 5-foot frame), it feels like the ‘jumping’ part is involuntary. There’s not too much I can do about that. But perhaps we can still deal with the ‘conclusions’ part? I would suggest that we take those assumptions to God.

Some people call it “the story we’re telling ourselves.” Others call it, “our perceptions.” Or maybe it’s the “lenses through which we view life.”

Whatever the semantics, can we take this nebulous thing we create in our minds and wait on God before we react or respond?

Many, many times, in my 40-somefin years of living on terra firma, I’ve found that things sort themselves out (someone should put that on a T-shirt). Like that second text message from my friend which straightened out my emotional tangle, time often clears up confusions.

The Word of God tells us in Philippians that we are to “Fix [our] thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.”

Which means the hypothesis in our minds is just that—a “hypothesis”. If it’s not established as true, then let’s not fix our minds on it. Instead, we can employ the language of lament and pour out our hearts to God and plead with Him to help us understand the truth and to free us from panic and anxiety over the stories we’ve told ourselves.

But there’s another bit too. An important bit. An infuriating bit that I see in myself.

Why do I jump to negative conclusions?

If I were to continue the pole-vaulting analogy, maybe we should a look at this long, bendy pole we’re hauling along with us in life.

I’ve uncovered that the “pole” in my life is the fear of man or trying to keep everyone happy or people-pleasing or being an approval addict.

That tendency to want to be in everyone’s good books can vault me over reason and logic and truth into a pit of panic and anxiety.

But Scripture is clear when it reveals people-pleasing as sin.

Perhaps your pole looks different. Maybe it stems from other baggage or life experiences. But it’s worth considering what you may be grasping in your hands.

Because pole-vaulting tends to be a dangerous sport. And sometimes we hurt ourselves and our relationships because we’re running ahead without being grounded in the truth.

Maybe we’ll never stop jumping to conclusions. But may we stop to question those assumptions before they unravel us and steal our peace.

May we pray for hearts that always seek and dwell on what is honorable and right and excellent and lovely, and above all, true.

 

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Photo by Włodzimierz Jaworski on Unsplash