day 1080: Jumping To Conclusions

“Be still, and know that I am God!"

Maybe it is just me but it seems like we are now in a world where we like to jump to conclusions before we really know the outcome or the full story.  Possibly it is the 24-hour news cycles or the condensing down what is supposed to be full thoughts into 140 characters, or the need to get out a status post before someone else, or maybe it is the attention deficit that seems built more and more into our culture, but we are continually moving into a time of quick judgements, speaking before we think, and writing before we have the facts.  As such, we need to be on even a greater watch on the reflection and reputations of our companies and their products and services.  We can see in the news daily how an executive or a company gets themselves twisted from partial information being communicated or someone with less than half the truth trying to grab a soundbite.  It would be naive to think that we are ever going to slow back down and more than naive to think that we will stop partial thinking.  What we can do though is work really hard to ensure that we are telling complete stories about our businesses and not falling into the trap of allowing others to define us.  The Marketing and/or PR team/leader who can keep the company ahead of the conclusions that will inevitably be jumped towards, are worth their weight in gold.

"Be still and know that I am God".  What a clear, forceful and at the same time, promising sentence. The Psalmist gave us this to make sure that we are listening to God in the stillness that He speaks to us.  I can also though hear in these words for our current culture that we are to be still and know who is God.  It is so easy to be quick with our words of judgment and cynicism.  Maybe what God is telling us it to "cut it out" and be still and let Him be God, not us who try and lord ourselves over others with our opinions and strong points of view.  Maybe we are not to be publishing to the world what our critiques and criticisms are about others.  Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Yelp, Glassdoor, etc. are all great, but let's consider what is constructive, what is damaging, and what is just a jump to the conclusion that hurts more than helps.

Reference: Psalm 46:10 (New Living Translation)