The Danger of Assumptions

We often look at a few facts and quickly reach conclusions based on our assumptions about some of the missing facts. History provides numerous examples of such assumptions that others have made, and some of them have been not only inaccurate but also downright dangerous to the assumers. The following examples all occurred on this date, July 18.

On this date in 1792, John Paul Jones died. The incorrect assumption, however, occurred many years before his death, during the American Revolution, when he was captain of the Bonhomme Richard (named for Benjamin Franklin's fictional almanac character Poor Richard). He was sailing off the coast of England, when he

sighted two British men-of-war escorting a convoy of English merchant ships and engaged one of them, the Serapis, in combat. The combatants waged a bloody 3 1/2-hour exchange of cannon and small arms fire, and Jones seemed to be getting the worst of it. In fact, Poor Bonhomme Richard was sinking. Captain Richard Pearson aboard the Serapis, assuming that the Bonhomme Richard was history, demanded that Jones surrender, to which Jones famously replied, "I have not yet begun to fight!"

Despite the fact that their own ship was sinking, Jones's crew continued to blast away at the Serapis, doing extensive damage to the enemy ship, and outlasted the British crew aboard her, and the British eventually surrendered. Jones then quickly transferred his crew to the still-floating Serapis just as the Bonhomme Richard slipped to her watery grave. Things hadn't quite turned out as Pearson assumed they would.

Another example occurred in 1938, when Douglas Corrigan, a mechanic for Charles Lindbergh, famous for having made the first solo flight across the Atlantic, took a long-distance flight of his own. When Corrigan filed his flight plan, it indicated that he was bound from Brooklyn, New York, to Long Beach, California. At least that was the assumption. The air traffic controller told him that he could use any runway provided he didn't take off toward the west.

Corrigan faithfully followed the controller's caveat. and more than 28 hours later, he landed in Dublin, Ireland. He claimed that he had made an error in calculations, but many people thought that his "miscalculation" was intentional. If it was unintentional, he had made a very wrong assumption. Regardless, he became renowned as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

A final example: In 1947, General Dwight Eisenhower appointed Florence Blanchfield to be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. She had served during World War II as superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps. People who didn't know their history assumed that she was the first woman to hold a military commission.

I contest that assumption because Sally Louisa Tompkins was made a captain of cavalry in the Confederate Army on September 9, 1861. Tompkins had founded and operated the Robertson Hospital in Richmond at her own expense and refused to any pay for her services. Her hospital had one of the lowest death rates in the entire Confederacy.

President Jefferson Davis was so impressed by Tompkins's work that when the Confederate government took over all hospitals, he commissioned her a cavalry captain so Robertson could remain open.

So one's assumptions can sometimes be wrong, and sometimes the wrong assumptions can be consequential.

One of the most important assumptions one can make is assuming that he or she is saved when in reality they aren't. The potential consequences of such an assumption, if wrong, are eternal. That's why the apostle Peter warned, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10).

Are you saved? Are you sure? Don't just assume; make sure. Better safe than sorry!