No matter how thin you make a pancake…

The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbour comes and examines him. - Proverbs 18v17

Okay, confession time again. Once in a while I enjoy watching Dr Phil (gasp). We get episodes months late here so I am not up to date. The one I saw part of Monday was dealing with abuse against women. Dr Phil was primarily talking to the girlfriend about the guy, but he got to the point where he wanted to give the guy a chance to give his point of view. He transitioned with a quote I had never heard before – ‘No matter how thin you make a pancake, it still has two sides.’

I thought that was a great way to put it and actually is a great application for this verse in Proverbs.

We have all been there of course. A friend comes to us all upset or excited about another person. We listen to their story and as it builds we get ‘on their side’ and accept everything they are saying. Their story sounds so good that we can’t even imagine how there could be another side. Before we know it we are off spreading the story without checking out the facts.

I have not learned a lot over the years, but I have learned that no matter how flat you make a pancake, it always has two sides.

The first person to plead his cause always seems like he has it right. That is until someone comes along and examines his story.

We need to be careful about acting before we hear both sides of the pancake. The other side may still be wrong, but we do need to hear it because quite often there is more to the story than the first side we hear.