Recently I was accused of pre-judging someone and assuming the worst before I had all the facts.I had seen a notification on my phone for a message from a friend. Without actually checking the message first, I thought I knew why she was messaging. I assumed she was contacting me to criticize me. I didn’t want to look at it right away because I wanted to take time to digest what I thought was her response before responding. I went for a shower. But while in the shower, I started ruminating about what I THOUGHT she was going to say. I worked myself into quite a lather!
I rehearsed all sorts of responses! They ranged from indignant to sarcastic to defensive. Oh, I had it all figured out! I considered telling her like it is! And I felt SO justified in all of my rehearsed responses. I was pumped up with righteous anger and ready for battle!
When I finally opened the message to read it, I was surprised to see a friendly compliment and request for assistance. Well! That wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be. I was dumbfounded. It stopped me in my tracks.
At first I laughed. Then I felt bad. I had judged her without all the facts.
I THOUGHT she was criticizing me.
I THOUGHT she was angry with me.
I THOUGHT I needed to defend my actions.
I THOUGHT I was justified in being angry.
Rather than holding my thoughts captive, I had let them run away on me. But my THINKING had been way off base.
And so I repented.
I had to ask God to forgive me for my angry, selfish thoughts about this friend and for not being kind in my mind.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5
From that day on, I try to remember to take captive EVERY THOUGHT and make it obedient. As a dear friend and mentor said many years ago “You can’t help a bird landing on your head, but you can stop it from making a nest”. So, the next time I’m tempted to get into a lather about my thoughts, I need to move that bird along and stop it from nesting!
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