Priority # 1 - My God - Keep My Mouth Shut!

Leviticus 19:16 AMP, "You shall not go up and down as a dispenser of gossip and scandal among your people, nor shall you [secure yourself by false testimony or by silence and] endanger the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord."

Proverbs 18:8 AMP, "The words of a whisperer or talebearer are as dainty morsels; they go down into the innermost parts of the body."

The other day I saw something. It was something juicy. It was something secret. It was one of those things that make you go, "Oooooooo!" Have you been there? Have you been idly standing by and suddenly the curtain is pulled back and you see something you were not expecting to see? But just seeing something forbidden is never enough, is it? It is the telling of secrets that power is felt. In telling of a secret, we feel important. We feel powerful. Why? Because we are still holding our lives up and comparing them to others. We don't feel as if we are as sinful as Sister SuzyQ. When we are exposed to privileged information we forget, for a moment, the skeletons in our own closets.

I struggled with preventing what I saw from rolling off my tongue. The very fact that the struggle is there says something about our own nature. Look at Proverbs 17:4 “An evildoer gives heed to false lips; A liar listens eagerly to a spiteful tongue.” As believers, we belong to a kingdom whose commerce moves by means of sowing and reaping.

Galatians 5:14-15, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!"

I have been the victim of vicious gossip and slander! Psalm 41:6 AMP, "And when one comes to see me, he speaks falsehood and empty words, while his heart gathers mischievous gossip [against me]; when he goes away, he tells it abroad." I know what it is like to be separated from loved ones because of the words of a slanderer. I still deal with the aftermath of it. "A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer separates close friends." Proverbs 16:28 AMP

Gossip is like a wildfire. You can't put it out. Once it starts there is nothing you can do to contain it. You can only hope that when it finally burns itself out and the spring rain comes with its new growth, that it covers the ugly, black scars with the promise of new relationships.

If you run across something juicy, remember to keep it in your mouth.