Wed 7 July

Thought for Wednesday 7 July Proverbs 16:28 A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. I wonder if you have ever been the subject of gossip, or helped to spread it? I hold my hands up and say that I have been guilty of it, until I realised the real cost of it. New neighbours moved next door to us many years ago. They were a lovely couple with a gorgeous wee boy. They had moved from a different village but didn’t say why, her mother still stayed in the village they came from. Eventually, when we knew each other better, we were sitting in her kitchen talking over coffee (as you do), when she started to tell me why they had moved. Her cousin had told her that her best friend was telling everybody that she stole from her work and had been sacked. This wasn’t true, she had left to go to another job but the word was about and she was the centre of everyone’s conversation. The result, as you can imagine, was a lot of hurt and angry words. The friends were longer on speaking terms and the stress was putting her marriage at risk so after months of being pointed at and talked about, the couple decided they needed to move house so that they could move on. The truth did come out in the end but too late for the friends, or her relationship with her cousin. Bill spoke, on Sunday, about The Ten Commandments and when I got home and was thinking about the sermon and the Commandments, when my ex-neighbour phoned me and it dawned on me that gossip is much like murder. Gossip kills reputations and friendships. It destroys trust and takes away confidence in others. In Romans 1:28-30 the Bible says    Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,  slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Gossips are right up there with all the other sinners! This is becoming more and more what we see in this world today. It’s as if everything in the Bible is being turned on its head.  Too many people today don’t care about truth and honesty. They are only concerned about themselves and don’t see a need to be honest about anything that doesn’t fill their own wants. The most heart-breaking thing is them bringing their children up with their own morals. Isaiah says,    ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter’. Prayer Gracious Lord, Please help us to distance ourselves from gossip, either from listening to it or spreading it. We know that even truth told in the wrong spirit can be so destructive. Help us to discern between gossip and informative news, which may be needed so that help or a visit can be arranged for someone. Amen.