A lifetime struggle

The last few days I've been fighting a battle....a battle of truth.  Can you relate?  A battle that takes my every effort to think on things that are pure, lovely, of good virtue, and truth.  A battle where lies of the enemy threaten to destroy my relationships, my hope, and my identity in Christ.


Gossip.  The word stings every time I hear it.  You know why?  Because I struggle with it and have been hurt by it.  The Lord has been working on me in this very area for a while now.  It has the power to destroy the Lord's work and relationships and I'm not willing to gamble that anymore.

There are times the Lord has to allow hurt from gossip to come into our lives to truly see how painful it is.  So I want to dig into what this really is.  Let's open our eyes to it.....

Gossip is....
*idle talk about the personal or private affairs of others
*news of personal or trivial nature
*spreading of misinformation - do you know if what you are spreading is really true?
*isolates and harms others
*passing on information shared to you by someone else that really doesn't have anything to do with you

Gossip can hide under...
*venting to a friend or spouse
*prayer requests
*passing on info you've heard in random conversations

What if I avoided talking about others in my conversations (good and bad)?  It would totally eliminate the possibility of gossip and misunderstandings.  It would close the door to error and misunderstanding.  What if I stopped gossip when someone else started talking about it or redirected the conversation to be more edifying?

In my experience gossip that gets back to the person simply stinks.  Now that the Lord has allowed me to feel it, I've heard His call to stop it immediately.  Will you join me, friends?  Will you ask the Lord to replace your gossip with words of edification in relationships?  Will you pray before getting together with a girlfriend so that the words you speak will benefit her?  Will you recognize when and where you do it so you can avoid those?

As painful as it can be, I'm thankful the Lord allowed me to recently feel pain through gossip so that He could teach me why its so important to stop doing it.