Think Before Acting Or Speaking – Avoid ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them.’ (Proverbs 29:20); ’To answer before listening— that is folly and shame.’ (Proverbs 18:13); ‘Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.’ (Proverbs 19:21)
‘Who took my <item> from the counter? Where is it?‘ This is something we all have probably stated with some level of frustration at some point in our lives. We get ready to leave to run an errand and the car keys are not where you normally leave them, or you know you just bought a box of your favorite trail mix and it’s not in the pantry where it should be. Then the frenzied search begins.
As we frantically look for our missing item, we begin to interrogate those who live with us – the spouse, the kids, the pets – on where they possibly hid our item from us. We search several times over with no success all the likely locations where they could be, questioning (often out loud) where they could have placed them and why they would do such a thing, and then many minutes into the search, just when in great frustration we’re ready to call it quits, an epiphany hits.
We then check the laundry bin, and pull out the pants we wore the day before, and lo and behold, the keys are in the pocket of the pants! We have the confused look of relief and shame, while the rest of the family, including the pets, look back with disdain. The apologies then begin to flow, though it is possible the family, at least for the next few hours, won’t be saying much to you until the sting of the false accusations we made fade away (usually when you return with the ingredients to make root beer floats or some other favorite treat),
Now, once in a while, you may be right; once I found a ring I wore among the cat toys where one of them at night got on the counter and likely was playing with it before carrying it and dropping it among their other toys. About a month later, after ordering a replacement ring (and in this case, blaming myself for perhaps leaving it somewhere, like on a sink in a public restroom after washing my hands), the glimmer of the ring among the stuffed mice and fuzzy balls caught my eye. This is the exception, however, and not the usual reality.
But for the most part, we sometimes act without thought or gathering all the facts. It’s not only with missing items; it can be hearing something scandalous about another person and making a snap decision about their guilt or innocence. We provide our take on the matter, then the truth comes out – sometimes the truth that was already out to begin with, and we end up eating crow.
Three verses from Proverbs (and there are many more) that convey this theme, of thinking before acting or speaking. We often act first, think later, then realize ‘whoops, I shouldn’t have done that’. In gun terminology, it’s ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’. We have a target with a bullseye; if we ‘open fire’ (with our mouths or actions – or our guns) before we take some time to focus (and ask God to give us His wisdom) we often will not only miss the bullseye by a wide margin we miss the entire target.
How do we ensure we hit (or come very close) to hitting the bullseye? With guns, we can think and preplan and prepare even before we get to the range. We can ‘zero’ in our sights with a laser boresight, add a holographic dot sight or a laser pointer to aid in our aim. Before the shot to get ready; we check our breathing, our stance, our grip and focus our aim, and only then do we fire.
With practice we can ‘Ready-Aim-Fire’ more quickly without missing our target, as long as we ensure to take the proper steps with every shot. If you forget to grip your gun properly or become unbalanced in your stance, you may miss the target even if it’s in your sight…
The last two decades or longer, the press has often thrown out news quickly that later we find the facts don’t support the narrative, from Richard Jewell (the security guard who was falsely accused of the Atlanta Olympics bombing), Nick Sandmann (the Covington High School student falsely accused of aggressive behavior when confronted in DC by Nathan Phillips, the Native American activist), and many others. In both the Jewell and Sandmann cases, news networks that rushed out with false accusations ended up having to pay millions of dollars to the two gentlemen and issue apologies – both avoidable outcomes if only they had awaited to gain all the facts.
Each of these reports are examples of ‘speaking in haste’, and later not only resulted in the stories retracted but both Jewell and Sandmann won large sums in lawsuits that had the press shown a bit of restraint and caution (and actually did some research) both public outrage and their organization’s outward cash flow could have been greatly minimized.
It’s the same in our communications and interactions with others. We must not let immediate emotional feelings make judgmental statement we will later regret. We must ‘Think-Verify-Act’ in all of our choices, with the Verify being asking God through prayer and with the Holy Spirit to guide you with either giving you the go-ahead to proceed or the ‘whoa, Nelly’ to go back and rethink your plans and get the facts.
With others, it’s always good to listen with what they have to say, to allow them to speak to ensure you understand what their true intent is. If we act before we think, or before we bring God into the picture, our actions may end up hurting and not helping.
