People Are Talking

What are we talking about? Most days we usually communicate either by voice, text, social media or some other method. Are we positive, negative, angry, happy, spiteful, hopeful - what's in what we say?

Some folks tend to be ones intent on berating others, complainers about just about everything, or negative Nellie's about what's about to happen. Others merit sainthood because they do nothing but lift up others and communicate most effectively by their actions that help others. Most of us are somewhere in between because we are humans with flaws.

But the ones intent on hurting others, those are the ones I have a difficult time with, especially gossip. This is how the dictionary defines that word: idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others.  In Psalm 41 David describes it perfectly: Whenever one comes to see me, he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander; then he goes out and spreads it abroad.

That's not even the worst part of it, he follows it with this: All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me saying, a vile disease beset him, he will never get up from the place where he lies. Sometimes we forget, even those of us who call ourselves Christians, that if someone screws up or makes a questionable decision our goal is not to shoot the wounded, but to help patch up the wounds.

This is just a reminder that Proverbs has the antidote for this attitude: Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Sure, deal with a problem, but use these kind of words as an antiseptic and bandages for a discretion and do not compound it with gossip to others.

Or as Jesus said, ​let he who is without sin cast the first stone!