Put the plug in the gossip drain

Gossip.  It is like a drain, it sucks you in the same way it sucks water down it.

Is it sucking you in?

Gossip can be so easy to fall in to and we all do it. Just one little tidbit won't hurt anyone we think. The problem is one tidbit can lead to one more and before we know it we can be discussing the personal life of others that needs not to be talked about. "Did you hear so and so got a divorce?” Did you hear he had a affair?" "Did you hear they are broke or that their kids are out of control?” We have all been there. Why is it that someone else's pain can give us such joy to talk about?   I am not perfect in anyway and let me be honest--it is one area of my life where God is really working on me.

I have really had to ask God to convict my heart when this ugly side of me tries to pull me down the drain. I am getting better in this area and I am learning to see how fast it happens. I have learned to remove myself from lots of conversations when I see it happening and it feels so much better in my heart to walk away from talking about others’ pain and personal matters.

What about you?  Do you find yourself sitting with a group of friends talking about the pain of someone’s divorce or how someone has gotten himself or herself into some kind of trouble?  Do you also get sucked down the gossip drain?

Gossip has a way of making us feel better about ourselves when we see someone else mess things up worse than we do in our own lives. It is a double-edged sword, on the opposite side of that good feeling we seem to get when we gossip, we dis-honor God and how can that make us feel good at all?

Gossip is a sin, plain and simple. It is wrong and yet we all seem to take part in it. It is as if we rank our sins and put gossip at the bottom of the sin list and we think it is not all that bad so we can justify it. That is not the case; a sin is a sin. The tongue is a sharp knife that can deeply cut the person on the other end of your words. Scripture warns us about gossip and the outcome of using it: Proverbs 11:13 A gossip betrays a confidence but a trustworthy man keeps a secret. Proverbs 16:28  A preserve man stirs up dissension and a gossip separates close friends. And, Proverbs 18:8 the words of a gossip are like a choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts. We all have the option to put the plug in and stop ourselves from being sucked down the Gossip drain. The problem is that we don’t always choose to.