(Please check this week’s Prayer Points)
Some sins are blatantly horrific and disgusting to the eye – murder, sexual sins, stuff like that. Easy to hear them and be revolted by them and subsequently revile those who commit such atrocities.
Not long ago I was talking about character assassination in line with why people kill and no sooner than I blog that than a real life case crops up that gave me the chance to prove if I was living up to my word.
Gossip.
It is very easy to take part in, because it’s usually done in the context of a regular conversation running through how things are with someone else. So this friend of mine was talking about a mutual friend … well when I say a mutual friend, I mean someone I know who had hurt me in times past. Now the conversation revolved around some things that this friend was supposed to have done. The things were not edifying or beautifying so here was my chance to stick the knife into the guy.
Yet I was reminded again of what God Himself thinks about gossip and words that cause division or are detrimental to the the health and well-being of another. Although it would have been easy just to slag off the guy suddenly something came in my being like bile as though what I was hearing about the man was in itself going against me like an allergic reaction.
I can only put it down to a conviction that lead me to stop the conversation dead with the following questions, ‘Did you talk to the guy with the same stuff that you’re telling me?’, ‘Do you think it’s right talking about a guy like that?’
When gossip is taken for granted it can almost be offensive to ask these questions and challenge what is a norm for people, but that’s how the Spirit of conviction works. God isn’t really there to make us popular with people, more than right with Him and if He’s not a big fan of something that is embedded in culture then of course you’ll get brickbats for going against the flow. Yet I reckon that’s what Kingdom living should mean in terms of our essential values and their expression. We necessarily go against the flow.
I don’t share this as an act of self-piety as though I’m the big shot who has never gossiped before in his life. I share it to say again how some sins that God finds abominable are so easy to commit. Not only are they easy to commit but it’s easy to think no one gets hurt because we’re only talking. The problem with this ease and indeed this disease is the effect it has on our relationship with others and what it says about how much we value Jesus.
Just something to bear in mind the next time you’re talking about someone …
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
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