Have you ever been in conversation with someone where suddenly you’re on the receiving end of gossip? I have been on both ends of that scenario 😳 & both can be hard.
When someone hurts you, it’s sometimes easier to talk ABOUT them than to talk TO them.
And when someone is hurt, it’s sometimes easier to listen with sympathy rather than asking the speaker when they’re going to talk directly to the person of whom they’re talking.
Gossip is simply sharing something that’s not yours to share with the wrong audience.
Noah Webster says it is one who tells idle tales. Idle means unfruitful, so it is one who tells tales that bear no good fruit.
We might have something to share that IS ours to share, but I’m stepping into the land of gossip if I don’t address it with the person who hurt me.
OR
We might know something about someone & when we share that tidbit with anyone other than them, we’ve opened the wide door of gossip.
Paul warns about caring for young widows in his letter to Timothy, because they may, “learn to be lazy & spend their time gossiping.” He writes that many had “already gone astray & now follow Satan.”😬
St. Phillip Neri gave correction to a woman who was known for gossiping. He told her to take a bag of feathers to the top of the bell tower & let them fly into the air. She thought it odd, but did as she was told & then returned to him, letting him know that she did as he instructed.
To her surprise, he gave her one more bit of instruction. He told her to now walk throughout the town & collect all of the feathers she released into the air.
Aghast, she said something like, “That’s impossible! There’s no way I could find them all!”
This was exactly the point. As it is with the feathers, so it is with gossiping words. Once you release gossip into the minds of others, there is no way you can pull them back.
Y’all I once heard that gossip dies when it hits the ears of the wise. If we remember that whoever gossips TO us will probably gossip ABOUT us, then we might become a bit quicker to end the conversation.
A lot of problems in our lives would end if we simply talked TO each other instead of ABOUT each other. Let’s start today!😉
💡JEREMIAH 33:1-34:22
💡1 TIMOTHY 4:1-16
💡PSALM 89:1-13
💡PROVERBS 25:23-24
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