31 Days: Don’t Gossip

Without wood a fire goes out;
without a gossip a quarrel dies down.

I really have struggled with gossip over the years.  Not that I made up lies and spread them or purposely spread untrue things.   But I think at some points in my life I prided myself in knowing something another person didn’t.  It took a few times of breaking confidence and hurting people’s feelings that I learned my job was not filling a person in on the finer points of someone else’s life.

Gossip is not just hateful or untrue talk.  It’s ANY chit-chat over someone else’s personal life.  Sure, there’s a time and place for talking about specific situations but overwhelmingly, it’s just plain old gossip.

Proverbs 18:8 from the Message says it like this: Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy; do you really want junk like that in your belly?

It’s junk.  Just plain old junk.

Proverbs 26 continues teaching against gossip and says a quarrel would just die down if people would just quit gossiping!  Oh boy, does that strike a chord.  Everywhere from junior high to church have I seen that to be true.  Just like a fire can’t burn without wood, a lot of problems between people would just disappear if people would quit talking about the problem.

Challenge: What quarrels or arguments are you in the midst of gossiping about?  Put an end to it.

Post edited from Words

This post is part of The Nester’s 31 Days Series