The first time I saw Jan Crouch the co-founder of TBN- Trinity Broadcasting Network- a satellite Christian network, I was confused. She looked nothing like a Christian not to talk of being a minister and a minister’s wife; not with her pink hair, heavy makeup and long nails. Rather, she looked and I dare say spoke with a drawl and like a “typical” blonde looked stupid and vain. She was not the ideal of a pastor’s wife by any stretch of the imagination.
One day, as I bumped into one of her programs, I found myself wondering how sincere a Christian she was and I heard God say to me, “when you do as much as she does for the advancement of my kingdom, you can complain about her looks.” I immediately repented because I knew the phenomenal reach TBN had and still has and there is no doubt that she was instrumental to its success whilst I could even not be counted upon to go on street evangelism in my area.
I learnt a big lesson that day and it was that I had allowed how she looked to color my perspective of her person. I had judged her based mainly on how she chose to present herself. When I removed the log from my eyes I realized she knew God in ways I didn’t know Him and was deeper than I thought. Suffice to say, I have followed in her steps by dyeing my hair a vivid orange/ red color and I now know that the color of one’s hair has nothing to do with one’s values and relationship with or their representation of God.
I remember Jan Crouch’s colored hair and the lessons I learnt today because of something that happened to me that reinforced the saying that appearances can be deceptive. I was accosted by a professional colleague. He was someone I knew by sight as belonging to the same branch having seen him at meetings and dressed in our professional garb.
We had never exchanged any conversations beyond greetings; as I passed by him, I greeted him. I noticed he looked at me strangely and thought he didn’t recognize me due to the face mask I had on, I removed my mask only for him to look more intently at me from top to bottom noting my hair color and my anklet. I was shocked when he asked if I wore beads on my waist. He took me by surprise when he made a move to find out by attempting to touch me1 Apparently, in his mind, I was a lady of easy virtue based totally on my hair color and anklet and maybe because I wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
I tongue lashed him thoroughly and even I regret not following my displeasure with a slap but it reinforced the lesson that appearances are deceptive because I had thought that as a result of his education he should be more broad minded especially with the profession we both practiced; this should have made him aware of the laws pertaining to sexual harassment and personal spaces. Apparently my judgment of him based on his appearance and membership of a profession to which we both belonged, was wrong.
We human beings are majorly ruled by our five senses -what we see, smell, touch, taste and feel and these senses have been conditioned by our experiences, exposure, upbringing and the people in our lives. We think that if something looks good, it must be good and if it looks bad, it is bad. We take one look at someone or something and make snap judgments about who they are and the situation without considering that there maybe more to what we see. We tell ourselves people’s entire life story at a glance.
We all do it, every single one of us and mostly it’s because we are ignorant and lazy. It’s a very easy process-take in the information as it presents itself, file it amongst previously held conclusions and immediately come to a judgment. In the “Science of Getting Rich” Wallace D. Wattles wrote:
“It requires far more effort to {think truth} than it does to think the thoughts which are suggested by appearance. To think according to appearance is easy. To think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work a person has to perform.”
The truth is that there are many perspective to a fact or truth, there are exceptions to rules and there is no hard and fast rule of looking at a situation.
I am a die hard fan of Agatha Christie and I have at least 60 hard copies of books authored by her. Her books have taught me that things are not always what they appear to be, evidence can be contrived, evil can lie behind a beautiful face and an ugly person may be beautiful inside. Most importantly, the most obvious facts do not always speak the truth.
The danger of blinding our eyes to other factors apart from what readily appears to us is real, especially in these age and time when facts can be easily contorted and media clips are manipulated, edited and embellished. I used to be very quick to pass judgment based on the facts I discerned until two incidents happened that befuddled me because I knew the persons involved very well and the facts that were presented did not fit the people I knew. Till today, the happenings remain a mystery that have defied logical explanations but have had severe consequences on the people involved.
So let’s stop making hasty and snap judgments about things we know little or nothing about, based on only one set of facts without considering other possibilities especially when those other possibilities are not immediately obvious and do not become known until after some time has passed. A lot of people have suffered much injustice and prejudice because we have judged them based on how they look rather than who they are.