The seventeenth key to flourishing friendships is to watch what you say.

Contributor Boothe Farley is sharing today an insightful perspective on our propensity to gossip. As she beautifully instructs below, we need to “measure our words” so that the reputation and heart of our friends is safe within our mouths. This is the only way our friendships can grow deep and flourish – to be mindful of how we talk to and about one another. – Jessica

Sometimes, when my husband comes home from work, I haven’t had a meaningful conversation all day long with anyone over three. I talk to myself – a lot – but even those conversations are interrupted by, “Mama! Gresham just poured all the pennies in your wallet into the toilet!” or “Mama! A blue crayon just scribbled all over my arms and legs!” Now, hear my heart in this: I chose to be at home. I love it. But this part – the no-conversations-with-adults part -is one that I’d consider particularly hard. Women are, after all, built to talk. We’re predisposed to chatter. And it’s really hard not to have that need satiated. Which is why I have often found myself, when considering later a conversation I’ve had with a friend or even an acquaintance, feeling all icky. I’ve run my mouth just to feel the thrill of it run. And it leaves me with the same feeling that usually accompanies eating too much at a really fabulous restaurant: nausea. I recount the things I’ve said, the ways I’ve said them, and it just makes me sick. Why is it that as an adult, as a woman who considers herself intelligent and respectful and God-fearing, I can’t seem to manage a single conversation with another female without it looking, in some respect, like a total disaster?

Last Christmas, I began to wonder about Mary. When you think about it, she was quite literally the worst of vessels for the introduction of the best thing that has ever happened to mankind. She was, in all reality, a teenage girl, and having been a teenage girl myself, I can tell you with almost 100% accuracy that rarely are these specimens of grace, patience, security, compassion, and selflessness. I certainly wasn’t. I didn’t think the world existed outside of a five-foot radius past my own nose. So why Mary? Why not Elizabeth, her older cousin, so old she was almost too old to have a child?  And yet she did: John the Baptist.  He was, according to Jesus, the best man that ever lived (Matthew 1:11). But he wasn’t Jesus. Why did God pick a teenage girl for His own mother?  I spent some time reading through the scriptures that surround the story of Christ’s birth, trying to discern what made Mary special.  In the book of Luke, I came across one particular verse that struck me as, well, odd.  After Jesus is born, his mother and father a pair in shock and utterly exhausted, surrounded by livestock and excrement, having only just made it to shelter in time for the birth, a group of shepherds arrives, breathless, and tells Mary and Joseph that an army of angels has sent them to see this small child – a child that is the “Messiah and Master.” Consider that. Within hours of his arrival, Jesus had worshippers. Not quite the visitors most of us get in the hospital, right?  That had to be quite overwhelming. But Luke 2:19 says something peculiar: after the shepherds left, racing to tell everyone they could of the good news that the angels had declared to them, and that they’d seen with their own eyes the Messiah promised to them ages before by the prophet Isaiah, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  Other translations say that she “continued to think about [these things]” or – my personal favorite – that “Mary kept these things to herself, holding them dear.”

I was stunned by the fact that Mary, having just had a post-delivery visit that has never been topped since, didn’t feel the need to run off and talk about it. Instead, she “pondered” – she thought about what had happened, she meditated on it, and found that she didn’t need to talk. At least not right away.   

We live in a world that is dominated by talk. While I may struggle to find opportunities to converse with friends during the day, you can bet your bottom dollar that when I can talk, I will. I was thinking the other day that never before has America been so about self-promotion. Facebook and Instagram and every other social media outlet not only makes it possible but also somehow compulsory to declare to the world: THIS IS ME. THIS IS WHAT I’M ABOUT. Sometimes that’s in a flowery status update (guilty).  Sometimes it’s just a picture of the meal you had last night – that you felt it non-negotiable to show your, uh, friends. Whatever the packaging, the delivery is unmistakeable: we are obsessed with talking, talking, talking about ourselves. Of me I sing. The lines of communication have become so blurry we don’t really know what to keep to ourselves, much less who’s worthy of knowing what. We walk around with veritably open chests, waiting for our hearts to get pummeled by a random ‘friend’ who has the option of telling us off from the comfort of his own living room. What, if anything, in our lives is worth “treasuring up”?

I love the Proverb that says “where there are many words, sin will follow.” It’s a fail-proof notion: one that I proved, incidentally, every single time I had long, drawn-out conversations with friends. It wasn’t that I went into those conversations looking to sin, but I realized, after they were done, that that’s just what had happened. That’s why I always felt so sick afterward. I realized. then, that whether I’d intended to or not, I walked into a field of destruction that has always plagued the female landscape. We most commonly call it gossip, but we rarely identify ourselves as gossipers. I certainly didn’t think of myself that way. But Scripture doesn’t seem to discriminate the way we do. I once heard someone say that as long as I wasn’t saying anything bad about another person, it didn’t qualify as gossip. It seems like that should hold up: certainly if I tell my friend that a particular woman I know is in the hospital or just lost a parent, that’s not gossip. That could very well be a prayer request, right? Well, yes and no. Scripture discerns gossip as varying from simple communication in two ways: intent and type of information given.  The type of information I’ve given in this case isn’t the issue, but what if my intent was to show my friend how much I knew about that particular woman?  How well she knows me?  In other words: how in the know I am?  What if my intent is to look holy?  To look like I’m the kind of Christian who’s always thinking of others, asking for prayer on behalf of the sick or the bereaved?  Of me I sing.

I made a declaration to the Lord a month or so ago that I would be sensitive to my propensity for gossip.  That I would let Him eradicate it altogether. After I realized I couldn’t justify the way I was talking to – and about – some people, even if I believed in the depths of my very selfish heart that my intentions weren’t all that bad, the choice was clear.  That was my point of view… the same point of view that tells me I’m not all that bad. Until I recognize the depravity of my own heart, I’m walking blind. Scripture says that, above anything else, the heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9).  It even convinces itself it’s not.  I’ve found that the determination not to gossip has resulted in a lot less conversation, period. I’ve found that that means I have a lot more time to pray.  I don’t pick up the phone to call a friend first thing. God knows I want to talk. But He’d prefer that start with Him. Starting with Him means by the time I get to my friends, my words are measured.  For in prayer, we’re called to be conscientious with our words, to remember – we’re on earth.  He’s in Heaven.  (Ecclesiastes 5:2)  By learning to be economical in our conversations with God, to be reverent and respectful, we learn one thing most surely: it’s not all about us. We’re not the most important one in the room.  In fact, contrary to the need to reign in our continual blabber about ourselves, Scriptures say there’s one kind of talking that should never, ever stop: prayer.  The apostle Paul says, in fact, that we are to “rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).  That kind of praying is specific: it’s flanked by joy and gratitude. Words coming from a  heart with those virtues in overflow won’t be words that cause others to balk when the conversation is through.

“Set a guard, O Lord, over the words of my mouth…keep watch over the doors of my lips!”  {Psalm 142:3}

Do you need to make a commitment to the Lord to measure your words? How can this help your friendships flourish?

{Image credit: MomLogic.com}

Boothe Farley

Boothe Farley is a 30-something mom who is a bit more tired than she'd like to be, for good reason. She has 3 beautiful children and a super-fun husband who keep her life a whirlwind of giggles, soccer games, school projects and date nights. She loves writing and riding bicycles on the beach. Her heart and her devotion belong to Jesus because His love is more real than any she has ever experienced.

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