Pastor John D Jakes

Do you see God’s hand in your life?  Sometimes His lessons are easy to understand.  Sometimes the lessons are hard.  I promised that I would talk about how important interpretation and not jumping to conclusions is.  Well, here goes.

 

Going to college really challenged me.  I met people who thought differently than I was accustomed to thinking.  They verbalized their thoughts in different ways.  They meant different things than I did even though they used the same words.  What a struggle!  I found myself misunderstood and misunderstanding the people around me.  A minister I came to know once told me, "Perception is reality."  I bristled a lot at that.  I had been brought up to believe that reality was reality and our job was to filter out perception until we discovered what was truly real.  However, even though I bristle at that statement if I think someone is using perception as an excuse not to see reality, I have come to discover that many people (sometimes even me!) can’t get past their perceptions.  Sometimes, we jump to conclusions about others or ourselves that are premature.

 

For example, I followed a girl to college.  She decided that I was not the one for her.  I had two choices: conclude that I had sinned by following her to college, or see what God had in store for me in the new situation I found myself in.  My choice has made all the difference in my life.  It affected who I met, what my plans were, and ultimately who I married. 

 

Situational depression is one of those premature conclusions that hurts us.  When we conclude that we are less of a person because of a situation that has hit us, we miss what God may be doing in our lives.  My encouragement?  Take a wait and see approach to the hard lessons of your life.  Don’t emotionally jump to a conclusion about yourself, God, or others without giving things some time to sink in and let the Word of God address the situation.  By the way, giving things time is a difficult thing to do because time always feels relative.  In times like those, use and trust a good friend or family member.