FriendshipNäide

Wednesday: A Friend Who is Trustworthy

SOAP: Proverbs 11:13

The one who goes about slandering others reveals secrets, 

but the one who is trustworthy conceals a matter.

Devotion:

This is one of our enemy’s most common strategies: taking good gifts of God and twisting them into tools of destruction. Gossip is one such perversion because it takes the good gift of bonding over sharing stories and turns it into a powerful force for destroying relationships. Many of us have experienced the bonds that can be built when a group of friends or coworkers has fresh gossip. We all want to be in on the secret and share juicy information with a friend. Gossip can cause more damage than we realize. 

Relationships are built on trust, and we destroy that trust when we gossip. We also harm the relationships of the ones we gossip with because we display that we cannot be trusted to honor our friends. Friendships built on gossip are mirages: they look real, but they disappear the second we try to rely upon them. True friendships require knowing that we can depend on each other to hold our private fears and hopes in confidence because we love the other person enough to prioritize their trust over the momentary excitement of gossiping. 

Prayer:

God, convict my heart the next time I am tempted to gossip. Show me how to build real and lasting relationships of trust. Amen.