Rod & Rose

“My name is Gossip. I break hearts and ruin lives. I am cunning and malicious and I gather strength with age. The more I am repeated, the more I am believed. I flourish at every level of society. My victims are helpless. They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no face. To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become. Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same. I wreck marriages, and ruin careers — cause sleepless nights, heartaches, and indigestion. I spawn suspicion and generate grief. I make innocent people cry in their pillows. Even my name hisses…I’m gossip.”

Gossip has become what I call a “winkable” sin. It’s so commonplace—so socially acceptable—we make jokes about it. It’s like gluttony and laziness, and other sins we’ve adapted to…to the point they no longer seem like sin. How quickly do we stand in judgment of the athlete who gets caught texting peep-show pictures, or the pastor who gets caught with his pants down. Do you know that when we gossip about that person, our gossip is just as sinful as the sin we’re condemning?

There’s something within us that wants to talk about the dirty laundry. So the cause is in our heart. The problem with gossip is not so much that we do it. The bigger problem is that it’s in our hearts to do it.

“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” ~Luke 6:45