Always Ask

Let me share with us some tiny wisdom I have learned over time. The wisdom is this: when in doubt, always ask. It costs you nothing to ask. 

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Have you ever been in a situation where things were being said about someone you know quite well and you didn't know what to make of it? 

It may have been that what was being said was either true or false; you just didn't have enough evidence to verify the facts. And this kept you "hanging in there" waiting for the story to end so that you may deeply reflect on the allegations. 

With such scenarios playing a lot in my life of late, I have come to realize that if you depend on another person to tell you the whole story of another person, there will always be bias (good or bad.) 

Take for instance a story an old man - who should be respectable according to public understanding - told me about a year ago: that this lady we both know and with whom we had been interacting several times had been pregnant in a manner I don't know and had given birth to a baby I had never seen. 

Not that she couldn't get pregnant, but the story startled me because for the whole period the allegations were being thrown against her, I had been seeing her in perfect "babylessness".

Now, after listening to the story, I sensed that it was sh*t. Yes, I just said that. The story was sh*t. It was that way because it had so many holes:

1. There hadn't been any visible evidence of a pregnancy: there was neither a baby bump nor any other physiological changes associated with pregnancies for all the time I was interacting with her. 

2. There was no need for me to know about someone's private affairs like a relationship or a pregnancy. Those two things are private, and him telling me about them without the consent of the lady meant that this old man had no respect for people's privacy. I felt like shutting him down. 

3. Why would he care about it anyway if he was going to do nothing about it but just report to Morris? Am I God? Or had God appointed him as an accusing angel to talk about what goes wrong where and with whom? 

See? That's what made me write this blog. Stuff like that makes me feel bad about how people approach other people's successes or failures. 

And for that matter, if you're faced with such ballooned stories in life, you got a few options with you; 
1. Face the story-teller and shut them down, or 
2. Say nothing, or 
3. Do what this blog post is advising you to do: ask. Ask both the victim of the story and the story-teller to sync the two points of view. 

In my case, I picked number two. I said nothing. 

Why? Because 
1. the evidence was clear that none of what he was saying was true; and 
2. silence ensures that he won't bring me any of those fake stories any time soon once he realizes that I don't give comments on people's private lives. 

It may be that you have heard funny stories about a prominent person or a great leader; or that someone is blaming the leadership in a certain place for a certain mess. Either shut that person up, say nothing, ask the story-teller how sure they are that what they are saying is true or go ask the person being badmouthed if what is being said is true. After that, deal with whatever truth you find in a gracious way. 

Here are some other things you can do:

1. Verify a story first before drawing conclusions. 
Go to the victim and get their story before you draw a conclusion. There are always two sides to a story. Get both before victimizing anyone. 
Proverbs 18:17 (ESV) "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him."

2. Don't poke your nose into people's private lives. It's none of your business. 
Don't go investigating without prior background information. You may end up being a gossip-monger. Even the Bible supports this here: 1 Thessalonians 4:11 (NIV) "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you."

3. Only pray to God or pass on the information to other parties for help after getting the whole story. 
Don't give the devil a chance to play you into his conniving slanderous schemes. 

Conclusion
Here's a simplified version of what I'm saying... 
1. Quietly listen and understand. 
2. Ask questions to get views from both sides. 
3. Take action. 

It costs you nothing to ask, so always ask. 

God bless. 

Bonface Morris. 

Here Is Why Gossip Is More Dangerous than You Think

Note: It is this simple: if you know anyone who has “a gossip problem” and they are your friends on social media (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google+ and Snapchat), just pick up the link to this post and share it often until you are aware that they have read it. Then wash your hands off it and move on.

Gossip

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I have seen it.

I have heard it too.

A guy or a lady comes to me as a leader and as a friend, and the talk that follows is about how discouraged they are because a grown up (and mostly married) “Christian” woman said very nasty stuff about him/her. And they feel bad. Really bad. They feel so bad that they are more inclined to hit and hate the gossip, face her head-on and tell her to go to hell than to love her. But they’re holding their guts about it. (Oh, thank God for that thing called grace.) The victim of the gossip now tells me that they now feel like he/she wants to leave the church/team and go elsewhere or quit ministry altogether; and maybe add a few footnotes to their distress and observations: to call us all Christians in that place/team a bunch of hypocrites. Justified, eh?

Normally, I look at them and tell them that I get it. All this is messed up. Because when you think of grown up women – who supposedly should be practicing Christians, carriers of their own crosses and removers of their own specks in their swollen eyes - wagging their tongues in the name of talking about everyone else and with bad intentions, it is not good. It is messy. Then, to make it worse, these same women expect these young ladies to trust them with their private life details: about work, about relationships, about life etc. etc. That makes it even more complicated. I always wonder why they choose not to do the following: call the concerned party, request audience, and address the issue or request for clarification. Is that so hard? Really?

So the victim and I remain seated, me convincing them to stick in there and pray for an upgrade of “shock-absorbers” from God, and they convincing me that they just hate how grown-up women (supposedly confessors of the work of the cross of Calvary) behave. They even quote 1Thessalonians 4:11 on me (…and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you…) which I always agree with.

I know most gossips think: “Aaah, talk is just talk. It will pass.” But words are powerful. Words are more powerful than a two-edged sword. (Yes please, quote me some Hebrews 4:12, won’t you?) They cut deeper, they erode wider and they disintegrate mercilessly. Words created the world, and they can as well destroy it (James 3:1-12.)

Never take the effect of words – whether good or bad - on people and situations lightly.

So, after sitting down with quite a number of young people who have been affected by gossip, here is how I have found words used in gossip are such a dangerous thing:

1. Gossip breaks the very law that is at the center of Christianity: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Would you like someone to talk bad unverified stuff about you (or those you love) behind your back or to tell people things about you (or those you love) that were to be kept secret and hidden from everyone else? You don’t, right? Then stop gossiping.

2. It makes Christians who are gossips equal to the devil: slanderers and accusers of brethren. Slandering and falsely accusing Christians is the work of the devil: Revelation 12:10 “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.’” Stop taking the devil’s job description for yourself. You’ll end up in hell!

3. It breaks fellowship because people just can’t trust one another. If you read my article on why people really leave teams, gossip is right there in the middle. Christians should be carriers of each other burdens, a people who pray for one another in love, a people who trust in God together for the sake of others, not those who add more weight on others through bad-mouthing. Come on, our own crosses were already heavy enough and we have discarded them at Calvary in order to carry lighter ones. Quote me some verses here too… Note that a leader who is a gossip is a fool (Proverbs 10:18) and that it hinders the passing on of information between two parties that should otherwise agree.

4. Jesus sees gossips in the light of this verse: Matthew 18:6 “…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (These are Jesus’ own words.) They are causing other brethren to sin: to hate, to fall out of love, to walk away from fellowships and to stop serving their God. So yeah, it seems like tying a millstone around the neck and throwing them into the sea is not such a bad idea (Jesus’ idea, not mine.)

And here are verses that say that gossip is terribly sinful (see the bold and underline in each verse):

Romans 1:28-30 (ESV) “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents…”

2 Corinthians 12:20 (ESV) “For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish - that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.”

1Timothy 5:13 (ESV) “Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.”

End note:

If you are going to talk about someone else to another person, let it be with the intention of offering help (prayer, counsel, love, material help etc.) but not spreading malice. If you need help on how to stop gossiping, the help I offered in this post on masturbation applies to you too. And to all those who have been affected by gossip in one way or another, pray that I’ll do a post in the near future titled: So They’ve Gossiped About You, What Next? to help you deal with the aftermath of gossip.

God bless.

Bonface Morris.