Assumptions Kill

OPINION: Assumptions kill relationships.

It's really rude to assume I know what someone else is thinking or feeling, unless they’ve already told me what they’re thinking or feeling.  Or you.

I’d say go so far as to say that it’s disempowering them, and it diminishes their right to be in charge of their own thoughts and feelings.

And “But I know them well” is not actually a good excuse. If I know someone well (for example, I’ve known my bride for many decades), I may have a better guess, a less-ignorant assumption, but I’m still taking away their agency, damaging their responsibility for their own heart. I’ve made that mistake enough times to be gun-shy. (She has paid dearly for my assumptions.)

Assumptions damage and can kill relationships, sometimes slowly and painfully, other times quickly and messily.

I watch folks pretty regularly make an assumption about someone else, then relate to them, or discuss them, as if those uninformed (or misinformed) assumptions were actually true. The assumptions prevent us from learning what is actually true about that person, and in conversation, they prejudice other people’s thoughts and expectations about them.

I was part of a social experiment one time. Six or eight of us were assigned to the task of figuring out the answer to a pretty complex problem. But as we worked on it, the researcher stuck labels (like “prideful” or “wise one” or “hair-brained”) on our foreheads and instructed us to assume that this is who each person really was as we worked on our problem.  

The exercise continued for another 10 or 15 minutes. The curious thing was that at the end of the exercise, we all knew what the label on our foreheads said, and we had all begun to live up to (or down to) those assumptions.

Lesson: in a relationship, my assumptions about you will help to shape who you are and how you relate to me and to others around you.

On the other hand, if I’m making assumptions about a public figure I’ll never have an actual relationship with, for example Taylor Swift or Donald Trump, then there’s no actual relationship to damage. But our assumptions still prevent us from understanding what’s actually true. If I believe that Taylor Swift is this way, then that’s what I’ll see, that’s what I’ll expect from her. More dangerously, that’s also going to shape (to limit) how I pray for her. Same with Donald Trump, or any other person I might pray for. (And I always recommend praying for both thought-leaders and political leaders.)

Personally, I’m working on (and I confess I have a long way to go) replacing assumptions with possibilities. I’m trying to eliminate “They think this” with “I allow for the possibility that they might think this,” and then ask enough questions to find out. Provided I really want to (and deserve to) know what they think. It seems to me that people made in the image of God are deserving of that level of respect.

"You're Killing Her!"

I had an interesting dream (aren't most dreams interesting?) recently.

Do you remember the battle of wits in The Princess Bride? My dream wasn't about that scene, but it referenced one line from it. This is that scene:

Vizzini: So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish her dead, by all means, keep moving forward.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Let me explain...
Vizzini: There's nothing to explain. You're trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?
Vizzini: There will be no arrangement, and you're killing her.

That's the line: Vizzini, holding the knife to the princess's throat, declares to the man who loves her, "You're killing her."

"You're killing her!" The villain blames the hero for the villain's own actions. That's a memorable scene in what is arguably the best movie ever made, but that scenario plays itself out over and over in the real world: the person doing good is blamed by the evildoers for the evil that he himself is doing. (I wonder if that ever happens in politics?)

God used that scene in a dream. It seemed that Father was calling out that lying spirit.  I was thankful.

And that's when Father spoke into the dream, and his mighty voice declared two things.

1.  A number of his kids have been falsely accused of what the devil has been doing. The accusations are lies. That's not who you are and you haven't done those things, the enemy has done them. Don't believe the lie.

2.  The enemy has had other lies, other lying spirits, deployed to protect the lie. Those are being disempowered and terminated as well. Some of them were very powerful, some very skilled with weaponry (I think of giants and swordsmen, of course.)

I believe that the lie that "You're killing her" is being exposed as a lie: those who are accusing others, more specifically, those who are accusing you, of doing evil will be exposed as liars, and they themselves will face consequences for that.

It's worth mentioning that if you've actually done the evil thing and it's just being exposed, then you don't qualify for this promise. There's a lot of real evil, even among the church, and much of it is being exposed these days, and God is not offering to keep sin hidden.

In addition, I believe that Father is revealing, and disempowering, other spirits who have been assigned against you to protect the lie that the accuser is making against you. He has made plans that would cover his lie, and if it were found out (as it is now), to cover his escape, but Father has already dealt with those lies as well.

So the exhortation is for us to pay attention. Specifically, we are called to stop paying our attention to the accusations against us, to let go of the fear that they are spewing at us, and to fix our eyes on the One who has already defeated them, who is now marching them off to captivity.

Look to your deliverer. Look to your King.