
…grace and truth came to be through Jesus Christ. ~ John 1:17b NASB
In the Four Years Since 2020
Four years ago, I published what was then the 23rd letter in the Dear Christian series. We all remember 2020: the Covid year that tipped our lives and world off its axis. But here’s what it didn’t do –
It didn’t interrupt long-held issues of people’s hearts but accentuated them even more. Gossip is one of those issues, no longer just secretly indulged as it has been and still is. It’s devolved to open slander and fewer filters.
Then two years ago, I picked up this topic, intending it to round out an even two dozen Dear Christian letters. But when this writer’s not comfortable and keeps feeling a check, some messages don’t get publicly shared yet. I’ve learned over many years of writing, it’s a timing thing for which Holy Spirit holds the spiritual season’s calendar. Mine, and those who will read now or happen upon my writings in time to come.
Common, Comfortable, and Consequential
Though gossip is as common as an old, comfortable shoe, the effects of gossip are felt personally in internal places. Here’s what Proverbs 18:8 (NLV) says about gossip’s “tasty morsels” –
The words of one who speaks about others in secret are like tempting bites of food. They go down into the inside parts of the body (the belly).
My husband and I have known people throughout our lives who gave themselves over to gossip. Once or habitually. Some before we were married, and plenty after we were wed and as the decades have unfolded.
In a church we attended in the earlier years of our marriage, there came to be a running caution about the pastor’s wife. “If you tell ________ anything in confidence, figure the whole church is going to know about it.” Years later, she died at the age I am right now. But not before a great deal of harm had permeated the church.
Later, we were made aware of pastors who ‘communicated’ when women with a scarlet letter left one’s church and went to the other’s congregation. Not unlike a community’s public practice of announcing a sex offender living in the neighborhood. Those churches also suffered untimely deaths or great distress in the leadership.
Hearing Hard Confessions
In our years of counseling and small group ministry offerings, we heard hard and painful confessions of sin that have never left our lips. Some things my husband heard over 20 years he has refused to tell even me. And those deep sins and woundings we know together will not be given public forum attached to any individual’s name.
But we learned to pray. For their healing and cleansing, as well as ours. Carrying such knowledge gets heavy. Jesus is the one with Whom we can speak and dispose of what is not ours to talebear. This doesn’t shut out safe ones with whom you can share. We sought such ones for ourselves; we chose to become such ones for others.
The Untold Damage of Gossip
The foundational issue with gossip is that it does a great deal of harm to relationships. Even ones closest to us. We will experience that truth in one of two ways. Either by gossiping about another with whom you have relationship, or by being betrayed by a close one whom you trusted to hold your confession in confidence.
By God’s grace, indulging in revealing others’ shared confidences was not a track I went down. Which made it even more painful when I realized that one whom I first trusted with a deeply private ache had the loosest lips. It was years ago, but the untold damage of gossip resulted in ramifications felt within many of my relationships. Proverbs 17:9 (AMP) has proved true in both aspects: love and separation.
He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love,
But he who repeats or gossips about a matter separates intimate friends.
Whether in a church, school, workplace, friendship, or family and relatives, gossip spreads like gangrene pâté. It is why we need to take heed against sampling juicy bits of gossip indulged in like selected canapés. That’s a smorgasbord you do not want to eat from. Your inside parts will react to those very words ‘secretly’ shared. We know for certainty you cannot separate spirit, soul, and body. They affect each other, including one’s health.
Undermined Trust Can Be Rebuilt
Gossip has undermined the ability to trust one another in families and the Body of Christ’s family of believers. There are those whose propensity to gossip has damaged any willingness to hold one’s heart open to them. We know plentiful reams and memes about awareness of who you can and cannot trust. And there’s the damage.
Undermined trust can be rebuilt, though difficult if already buried away in the tomb of denial and unforgiveness. That goes for both the gossiper and the one gossiped about. Two sides of the same sin; one Mediator: Christ.
No one said it would be easy to navigate uncomfortable conversations. We are negatively conditioned to avoid dealing with things that stink. My Lord, Jesus had to do it all the time. And He did, meeting each one where they were. Even when they didn’t want to be ‘met’. Some determined it too fearful to get real with Him. But boy, could they rip it up with gossip among themselves! And apparently not think twice about the consequences to others’ reputations and relationships. He saw and experienced it fully. Sinless; yet gossiped about with malice.
None of us are sinless. If honest, all of us have worn gossip’s comfortable shoes and felt its wounding effects.
When it comes down to it, we can buy all the books. We can listen to the latest podcasts. We can leak out our emotions via snarky memes. We can continue to gossip because what else will I talk about? Anything but engage the real work of spiritual service1 that brings freedom and healthier relating to damaged, distant relationships.
What is Our Spiritual Service?
1 I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy, acceptable to God—which is your spiritual service. Romans 12:1 –
Then, go to work on rebuilding where you can in Christ’s love…since ours is incomplete. Whether our efforts are successful with others will not be because we did not try. The Spirit of Truth and Grace delights in holy surprises.
Mind the tongue and detest the “tasty morsels” of gossip. It’s an old God-recipe that bears much better fruit.
~ Gracefully Free
Recommended reading: Book by Charles F. Finck – “As We Forgive Those” – truly, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Pattern of Seven: The Armor of God ~ Feet Fitted With the Gospel of Peace
Photo Credit: Pexels-Pixabay-33783 │ ©2024 Nancy C. Bentz
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