Bumper
Stickers and Such
Assumptions are the termites of
relationships. ~Henry Winkler
I am beginning to think I spend too much time
on the road. I was driving home this
week and when you stop at a lot of red lights on the way home you have plenty
of time to observe what other people stick on their vehicles.
I have never been a bumper sticker
person. My thought has always been what
happens when I decide to sell my car.
Will someone else want all the declarations that I pasted on my car?
Anyway, I get behind this truck and I start
reading the stickers on the windows, bumper and tailgate. You can tell a lot about a driver by what they
stick on their car. From observing the
stickers this guy was a United States Marine, the sticker with USMC on it told
me that along with the marine sticker.
He was also a deer hunter, hence the sticker with a deer head on
it. He had a license plate frame with
skulls all around it. I really don’t want to know what that means. There was an Ole Miss sticker and a sticker
of the state of Mississippi with Sycamores on it. I am guessing that there is a school in Mississippi
with a Sycamore Mascot, the fighting trees.
At another light I saw another truck that was jacked up high and had one
of the new black and white license plates.
I am not sure if this was a vanity plate or just the letters the state
picked for this guy but it read XXLDDS.
I am thinking he is an extra, extra, large dentist but I don’t think I
will ask him.
All of this started me thinking. We make a
lot of assumptions about people and each other just by appearances and even the
bumper stickers on cars. It always seems
to surprise us when we really get to know people. Many times the assumptions we made along the
way are not what the person is all about.
I think God created us for relationship with each other. We can’t be in relationship with each other
if we are making the wrong assumptions about them. For all I know the guy driving the truck with
all the stickers may have borrowed the vehicle from his son. Why do we assume we know something about
someone just by looking at the external without getting to know the
internal? How many times do we assume
the person we work with didn’t speak to us because they don’t like us, are mad
at us or have something against us?
One of the nicest and sweetest people I work
with didn’t speak to me when I first started working at my new job. Later I found out that she was working
partial days because her husband is gravely ill. Sometimes God decides to give us a sucker
punch just when we need it.
Prayer for
the Day:
Heavenly Father, I often make assumptions about people just by looking at them.
Please help me to see the person You created.
Help me to see the heart and character of the person and not make
assumptions based on the external. The
majority of the time my assumptions are wrong and how can I love that person as
You do if I don’t set my assumptions aside.
Thank You for Your everlasting love for me, a sinner, and show me how to
love others unconditionally.
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