This week, Pastor Dale continued our new series on Emotionally Healthy Relationships. This morning's teaching provided powerful insight into a natural behavior that often leads to conflict in our lives. Our natural tendency is to tell ourselves stories about another person's behavior. It may be a text exchange, an expression on someone's face, a gesture, a behavior. We tell ourselves a story of what it meant. When we do this, when we interpret, tell stories, make assumptions, and don’t check for the truth, we do things that are destructive. We jump to conclusions about people and assume things based on our expectations and assumptions. When we do this, we are believing a lie and telling a lie about this person. Even if it's just in our minds, we could quite possibly be condemning an innocent person.

“Every time I make an assumption about someone without confirming it, I am at risk for believing a lie about this person. My assumption is just a breath away from misrepresenting reality. Because I have not checked out my assumption with the other person, it is very possible I am believing something untrue and effectively bearing false witness against my neighbor. I am especially prone to this temptation when the other person has hurt or disappointed me. That also makes it more likely I will pass on my false assumption to others. When we exchange reality for a mental creation (a hidden assumption) we enter a counterfeit world. At that point we exclude God from our lives because God does not exist outside of reality and truth. We also wreck relationships by creating needless confusion and conflict.”

― Peter Scazzero & Gerri Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships

Pastor Dale provided two things we can do to improve this unhealthy behavior:

1. Stop Mind Reading
2. Clarify Expectations

If you missed the teaching, we invite you to take time and watch it today as Pastor Dale provided very helpful context around the expectations we have, how they can be problematic, and most importantly, how we can clarify expectations with others going forward. When we do this, we become healthy people, a healthy church, and a healthy community.