perception is fact
How many legs does this elephant have? We all believe our perception to be fact, even though we could be wrong. 
i talked to a young mother who was a newcomer last month at Living Word. As i was talking with her it was so obvious how important peoples perceptions of us are. She had stepped into her son’s classroom to observe when a child came back to one of the teachers to ask to use the bathroom. The teacher told him they didn’t have anyone available to take him and to sit back down, he would have wait. This concerned the mother greatly. “What if that had been my child. If i leave him in the class, will they let him go to the bathroom if he has to go?” And a legitimate question it is. She also, mentioned that she could have taken the child. She was sitting right there and was available.
How having worked in children’s ministry my self, i know that there are kid’s that have to “go” every 5 min. This was, no doubt, one of those kids. In addition to that, we have a policy that no one can take kid’s to the bathroom with out being approved by a background check. This newcomer obviously was not approved to take the child to the bathroom. All the right calls were made by the children’s teacher. I explained all this to her, but her perception had already become fact in her mind.
This made me think, how many times do we do “the right thing” without thinking if the people around understand why it is the right thing. If my ministry is people, then i care that they understand why things are right. If i don’t have time, or it is not appropriate to explain it to them, then i have to figure out a way to do the right thing and making it appear to be the right thing at the same time.
Question: how does this apply to your life and ministry? If my ministry is only to God and i don’t care about his creation, then i don’t care what they think. I did the right thing and the people need to get over it. I think the former applies to me.
