2012 Has Already Begun

And where has the time gone? I can't believe that January is almost over, and in about six weeks we'll be on furlough. Time is going to continue to pass by quickly; let's hope in 2012 I can be more faithful and get more work done. Yes, that means not wasting so much time. :) Always a hard goal to reach each year but an important one to keep me continually checking my status each day.

I was doing a bit of organizing today and ran across some notes I had written down. I was thinking about the destructive effects of gossip both in telling it and in listening to it, and I wrote down some thoughts about excuses we make for doing it. I began wondering if we thought of gossip as poison would we really believe the excuses that we give for gossip would also work for poison?

Now I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who could do a much better job at writing about this than me. I'm not much of a writer or speaker, but I do like to think about things and challenge myself. The creativity may be lacking in my list of possible excuses, but I hope you'll get the point just the same.

It's OK. I'm just poisoning my __________ (husband, family, son, daughter, best friend, hairdresser, etc.) This means as long as I'm not causing some kind of pandemic, it's ok to share a few tidbits with just the people closest with me. After all, they're the ones that I really love so I want to share this with them too.

I don't feel very good with this poison in my system so I'm going to give it to someone else. If I can get rid of by giving it to someone else, I'll feel better. Unfortunately you can't give it away to another human being, it just ends up with two people infected.

I know of someone else who really needs this poison. My husband has a right to this poison. Barbara Rainey would say we don't have to share everything with our husbands. Some things are just wrong to say, and we don't need to pass on things that are hurtful and are gossip.

I'll just drink this bit of poison; I won't give it to anyone else. I wonder how many people listen to gossip because they think they won't ever pass it on so it doesn't effect them.

I don't need a doctor to help me. Trying to get rid of the poison without a physician's help is not going to work. You need the physician not your best friend.

Proverbs 18:8 says, "The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, And they go down into the innermost parts of the body."

When you first hear the gossip, the words sound so good. Maybe it makes you feel good to hear something bad about someone else. Maybe it validates what you already thought about that person. Maybe the gossip actually has a stimulating effect when you first hear it, but they will travel down into the innermost parts of the body. That's not good!

One commentator wrote that the dainty morsels are greedily swallowed down like sweetmeats that are covered with red candied seeds, but the red comes from red lead. It's dangerous to those who greedily swallow it. And when it travels down to the innermost parts, those types of wounds are mortal.

Gill writes:

"The words of a talebearer are as wounds,.... Or rather they are wounds; they wound the credit and reputation of the person of whom the tale is told; they wound the person to whom it is told, and destroy his love and affection to his friend; and in the issue they wound, hurt, and ruin the talebearer himself." We shouldn't look at gossip as something that is not harmful to us. My mom used to tell me if people will talk about someone else to you, they'll talk about you to someone else. Mom was right, and people don't seem to grow out of it if left to themselves. Someone (and I'm really meaning I need to) needs to take the stand and cut off the flow. And we don't need to wait until we're hurt by it to suddenly become indignant about the horrible end results. Let's be radically changed by Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how good our lives would look to those around us if we did get rid of the poison that is mortally wounding us? The only way we're going to be able to do that is by going to the One who can really help us. If we keep managing it the way we've been doing, the problem just grows. Only Jesus can heal us. Make 2012 the year you stop the poison from spreading. Ask God to help guard your ears, heart, and mouth. We don't need to lose more people to mortal wounds that are caused by gossip.