My housemate is back together with his ex-girlfriend, my other housemate told me.
“She’s so controlling, and she cheated on him. I don’t understand why they are back together. My other friend knows her and says she’s a nightmare.”
Oh, okay well, when I heard this about that girl I kind of found it difficult to talk to her. As soon as I met this girl all sorts of things went through my head. I keep wondering if it’s going to last this time. Why does she have to be in my house? Sometimes, I feel sorry for the guy.
I almost immediately didn’t like this girl without giving her a chance. Then something stopped me. Something told me it’s not right to judge her when you have no idea what went down in that situation. It was true. I was completely clueless about her story. I hadn’t spoken to my guy (housemate) about it, and I hadn’t spoken to the girl about it. The only information I was using to judge this situation was some unpleasant gossip I had heard down the line. I decided I was not going to make assumptions about this girl or the situation because that was not fair.
I sat down with this girl one night, and we had a long chat about buying cars, living with your parents, and chocolate brownies. Suddenly, she seemed really nice.
Gossip is defined as second or third-hand information that someone dumps on you without your prior consent and without the consent of the person being gossiped about. Gossip can be true, partially true, or completely false. It can be motivated by good intentions, but it’s always negative personal information about another that puts them in a bad light.
Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 in the Bible warn that listening to gossip is like ingesting choice morsels. It gets into one’s bloodstream just like poison does. And once consumed, it’s difficult to get out.
This is true: once those negative thoughts were in my mind there was no way of removing them. They affected my judgment.
I’ve come to learn that there are always two sides to any story. Sometimes three or four. In most of the cases I’ve heard the person who goes around complaining about someone else is the one who is spinning the facts and leaving out key plot points which often change everything.
“He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.” – Proverbs 18:13
Unfortunately, gossip has become a normal part of our culture. People often congregate in the tea room discussing their work colleagues or they call up a girlfriend and subtly cut down a mutual friend. All this ever leads to is cliques, judgment, and broken relationships.
So, what should we do if we hear a rumour about someone else?
We should ask ourselves: Would I want someone talking about me like this? How would my family feel about this… my spouse, my mother, my father, my children, my best friends?
We should not believe everything we hear. Nor should we listen to or allow someone to gossip about someone else to us. We should believe the best about people. If something comes up that is questionable and it’s our place to get involved, we should go to the person concerned to get the full story from their side before we make assumptions.
Never spread something about another person without chatting to them first. Have an open mind to hear their heart. At the end of the day it comes down to “treat others as you would want to be treated yourself.” We were not designed to compete with each other but to work together, encourage, and equip those alongside us.