Proverbs 17:9
Let
it die! Don’t spread the story. No one else needs to know.
These
are not phrases that are heard very often in our age of Twitter and Facebook.
We have become a culture where gossip takes on a life of its own. Who cares if
George Zimmerman got arrested again. It doesn’t affect my life. It shouldn’t
affect your life. That goes for Justin Bieber, Lindsey Lohan, Lady Gaga and the
whole rest of that bunch. Just let it die.
If
only we would spread stories of the good things that people are doing. That
would be some news worth spreading. Find someone who tells the truth even when
it is inconvenient or personally costly, that would be some great gossip.
Our
proverb talks about the relationship between our handling of an offense (a
wrong done to a person) and love. If we want to build a loving atmosphere, then
we must work at not highlighting other people’s weaknesses and failures. Even
if the offense is against us. There is no rule that says we have to make a big
deal out of it. We can let it go. We can forgive.
So
why do most people gravitate to gossip? Most people gossip because they are
insecure about who they are and their own value. If they are putting other
people down, then they are lifting themselves up in the pile. They may not be
on the top, but at least they are not like “that guy.”
We
can also feel insecure about our friendships, so we repeat stories to the other
person’s friends in order to ruin that friendship. We don’t cover it over, we
bring the spotlights and make sure everyone can see it. We video it and post it
on Youtube. And once it is posted, it can never really be taken back.
I
want to challenge you and I to be different.
We need to learn to let it go, to stop spreading or even taking in the
follies of other people. We don’t have to be a consumer of those stories. We
can just click right past them instead.