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Do we give up on God when our prayer is not answered? When we see some pretence in one church member, do we classify the church as a place of hypocrites? When we encounter one fault in our spouse, do we conclude that our marriage is a failure? If one relationship breaks up, do we think we will never be able to get married? Etc. We have this tendency to be so moved by emotion when we face difficult situations that we jump to conclusions and take drastic decisions.

Look at God not answering our prayers. As our heavenly Father we can go to Him freely and ask anything we want. But He may think what we have asked is actually bad for us, we are not yet ready to handle it, it is not the right time to give it to us, etc. So, if we judge God based on this one experience and conclude that God cannot be trusted to answer prayers, won't we be way off completely?

The point is that we are so affected by the adversity that we feel like responding to it impulsively. This may take different forms, such as to spite others, teach others a lesson, hurt ourselves to support our self-pity, get sympathy from others, etc. But in all such ways, the fact is that we are not being real. We are exaggerating our situation and making things blacker than they are.

When we are emotionally moved like this, we are not thinking of other factors that are involved in our situation, which can give us a proper balance in our understanding. We can safely say that in all situations there is always more than one factor at play. It will be most foolish for us to take action after having looked at only one factor.

Look at another situation. "The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him" (Pr.18:17). Isn't this a common situation we come across? Considering our bigger context, the problem is that the one factor that is in front of us is so convincing that we believe at that moment that we have enough facts to make a judgment with. But actually there are many other sides we need to look at before we can see things clearly.

Once we understand this principle, we can start learning to be slow to draw conclusions but to look for more understanding (Ja.1:19). We have to teach ourselves not to be impulsive. We can take the matter before God and ask Him to show us what He thinks and how we should respond. "The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty" (Pr.21:5). "Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him" (Pr.29:20).

There are so many sides to our God that a whole lifetime is not enough to know His ways fully. When we come into situations where we are unable to figure out what He is doing, it is extremely important that we don't jump to wrong conclusions about Him. If we react negatively with the limited understanding we have about God, it can hurt us very badly. Let us wait on God, ask Him to teach us more of His ways (Is.40:31).

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