"Suspicion often creates what it expects. (Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.)” - C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
At some point, a person begins to think, "If I'm going to be hung as a thief, I might as well steal something."
If you are the one being suspected, do your very best to resist this temptation to be as bad as they already imagine you are. It is better to be hung between two thieves as an honest man accused of treason than to be hung as a traitor, guilty as charged.
If you are the one suspecting others, do your very best to resist the urge to subtly season each of your glances or words with suspicion. If they are who or what you suspect them to be, they won't be able to conceal it forever. If they aren't, why would you want them to become what you suspect? Don't be so set on being right in your assessment that you would be disappointed to discover that they are, after all when everything is said and done, an honest chap and nothing of the sort you suspected. This comes from pride and it must die.
Place your confidence in the conspicuous.
1 Timothy 5:24-25
The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.
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