First Impressions
By Rachel Head
Last fall, one of my relatives was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. My family just recently went to visit him, and it is very evident that the disease is there. He knows all of us, but he struggles with remembering short term things. We could tell him something five to ten minutes later he would ask us about it again. The one thing that I am so thankful for is that he remembered who I was.
You may ask, “Rachel, how does this relate to first impressions?” Well, if I was not closely related to that person, he may not remember me as well. He probably is not able to remember the name of the person he just met if they do not make a good first impression on him.
If we do not make good first impressions on people, how are they going to act toward us? If we are mean or rude to them, do you think they will listen to a word that comes out of our mouths? Of course not! That is why first impressions are so important!
I would like to look at someone who made a maybe not so good first impression but ended up doing amazing things. Then I would like to look at an example of great first impressions.
First, let’s look at Moses. After he is taken away by Pharoah’s daughter, one of the first things that we read him doing is seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. So, what does Moses do? He goes and kills the Egyptian. If we end there, this scene makes a bad first impression, especially for the one who ends up leading God’s people out of Egypt. But if we think about it, he was only doing this to help one of his brethren. Now, after Pharoah hears about this he wants to kill him, but Moses flees and goes to the land of Midian (Exodus 2). So we can learn that even though there is a bad impression that is made, it can always be made up for. But we do have to be willing to take the consequences of what we do. Moses did end up being an amazing leader of God’s people.
Secondly, let’s take a look at Hannah. The first time we read about her, we see that she is her husband’s favorite wife but the other wife gave her a lot of trouble because Hannah could not conceive and the other wife could. The other wife provoked her so much that Hannah wept and did not eat. We see that Hannah does not try to get back at the other wife, which gives us a very good impression of her. She then prays in the temple and Eli sees her and thinks that she is drunk. She is not drunk but she is extremely fervent in her prayers because she is very sorrowful and really wanted a child. Eli then tells her to go in peace because God would grant her wish. Hannah had a son, named him Samuel, and dedicated him to God’s service. After Samuel was born, Hannah prayed to God to thank him for granting her wish (1 Samuel 1-2). Isn’t this an amazing account? It shows us to be patient, kind, and longsuffering. It also teaches us to always pray in the bad and good times.
After looking at these two accounts, I was definitely inspired to be more intentional about making good first impressions so that people can always tell that I am a Christian. I hope you were inspired as much as I was to always work hard to make good first impressions.