The Problem with Gossip

We've probably all heard the saying "never judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes". Basically, that we have no place to judge what a person is going through because we aren't going through it ourselves. I've always loved this quote because it addressed a problem that every person faces in their life: gossip. It's so easy to pass on that little observation about someone. Unfortunately, though, our 'observations' are often so wrong.

In the past few weeks I've realized how wrong I've been about some of the people around me. I've realized how much I've misunderstood them, and while I hadn't gossiped about them, I had misjudged them in my mind [which is just as bad]. The fact is, we can never know what people are going through and for us to do anything but help them when they are going through a difficult time is wrong. 

People go through painful and horrible things and instead of coming alongside them, we have a tendency to judge them. In doing so, we make their situation so much harder. We wonder why suicide is such a high trend in teens and young adults; we wonder why depression is running rampant; we wonder why people have so many fears, when we are our own problems. 

Imagine if you could openly talk about the issues you were having, without the fear of rejection from the people around you? And I know that fear is often unfounded and that it is a tool Satan will use to stop us from having freedom, but Satan is using the attitudes we have as a Christian society against us. 

From my own personal experience and in talking to friends, I can see how much fear has hurt us and held us back. Fear of rejection is very hard to overcome because our deepest desire as human beings is to be loved and accepted. Many of us have had experiences with gossip and being misunderstood and it's a hard place to be, especially when close friends and family members put us there. So hard that we will avoid it at any cost. So often this leads to much deeper issues... holding things in is never a good solution. 

What's missing is unconditional love and understanding. Unconditional love is very hard for us to grasp because we're not perfect and our tendency is to compare ourselves to others and then judge when people don't appear to measure up. Although impossible for us to have all of the time, it is pretty self-explanatory. Deciding to love people unconditionally is saying that you are going to love people despite what they've done. 

Understanding is being willing to look past what you immediately see and look deeper. It's too easy to just look at people and their actions, we must look in them in order to begin to understand. And even if you cannot understand what they're going through, you still don't have the place to judge. It goes back to love. 

We're all people; it shouldn't be so complicated, but it is! No matter how many times God teaches me this lesson I still find myself learning it again and again. We have a tendency to judge and misunderstand people. We have to start making life easier for the people around us; some people are really hurting and we are only making their lives more difficult. 

-Meaghan