Ecclesiastes 7:21 – Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you—(NIV)
Ecclesiastes 7:22 – for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.(NIV)
Ecclesiastes 7:21 Don’t eavesdrop on the conversation of others. What if the gossip’s about you and you’d rather not hear it?(Message Bible)
Ecclesiastes 7:22 You’ve done that a few times, haven’t you—said things Behind someone’s back you wouldn’t say to his face?(Message Bible)
We tend to love and trust the person who informs us what is said behind our back. We want to know who speaks negatively about us. We want to know the person who acts friendly but says bad things about us when we are not listening.
Many times these negative things said behind our back are not critical pieces of information. They are mundane matters that reporters exaggerate or misinterpret in order to make it look valuable. These are matters that when exposed and investigated are found to be silly issues that shouldn’t have caused acrimony among friends.
The Bible advises against paying attention to everything that is said about us behind our backs. The Bible warns us today that such information may look interesting but is not worth our attention. Such information may break trust and relationships but doesn’t help us in any other way.
Do away with the habit and desire of listening to everything that is said behind your back. That habit will drain your energy without commensurate value. Focus on the important things!
People who report exaggerated and misinterpreted information look loyal to us but in reality are relationship breakers. Such people are turncoats who should not be trusted. They don’t deserve our attention.
An incompetent leader is an avid consumer of unverified stories of who is secretly against him or her. Such a leader listens and believes these stories. Such a leader even acts on the information that is at best gossip. Such a leader will hate people and act against them based on these stories that the Bible says we shouldn’t believe. Such a leader is very close to low rank people who don’t report directly to him, because they feed him these exaggerations.
Even our best friends have something they don’t like about us. Our best friends love us ninety nine percent, but may have one percent reservation. When our best friends mention the one percent in secret, it doesn’t nullify the ninety nine percent. They are still our best friends. Losing them is not losing hypocrites it’s losing an asset and remaining with these reporters as friends but are not. Reporters seek to manipulate us by such pieces of information they are not true friends!
The Bible goes further to state that we too have reservations that we mention behind people’s backs. We should therefore not act shocked or surprised that negative things are said about us. It’s normal!
It is healthy for leaders and everyone else to avoid paying attention to such pieces of information. These pieces of information will break long held friendships and replace them with nothing better. These pieces of information will cause us to lose loyal hard working servants and replace them with lazy unreliable incompetent sycophants. We do well to heed biblical instructions today. Don’t pay attention to everything said about you behind your back!
We can’t ignore intelligence reports. We can’t ignore information of strategic advantage. But we should be wise enough to ignore valueless information that only affect our feelings about people. We need wisdom to be able to know what to ignore and what has value.
May God save us from the desire for gossip updates. May God help us to know that it’s normal for negative things to be said about us behind our backs. May God heal broken relationships and restore trust that was affected by such reports. In Jesus’s name, Amen!
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“May God save us from the desire for gossip updates!”.
Amen.
Amen! We need this salvation
Amen
Amen!
may the lord assist me to start it today in the name of Jesus Christ
Amen!