Be faithful in your remarks

"He who spreads slander reveals secrets, but he who has the faithful spirit keeps them." Proverbs 11.13

 

Hannah More, a Victorian revivalist, had an infallible cure for unfounded talk. When someone told him an unpleasant fact about a person, she immediately said : "Let's go see the person you're questioning to check the facts." Often the person changed his accusations or asked that his remarks be ignored. But Hannah was inflexible. She demanded that the light be made. After a while, it became rare for someone to come talk to Hannah More with unfounded talk.

Did you realize that some of your comments were not the exact reflection of what you had heard or seen ?

The Bible warns us against the misuse of language. It reminds us that rough words, equivocal words ... are instruments of death, while true words are a source of life : "Death and life are in the power of language." Proverbs 18.21

We are often faced with an impossible exercise. If we have seen a conversation between two people, and we try to repeat what has been exchanged, we forget some words, we exaggerate others, we interpret some unspoken, we say things as we have understood but not necessarily as they were said.

I realized for myself that it is not easy to be faithful in the report we are making. So let us be as sober as possible and remember that what we report is only a personal perception and that it is better to speak with those who have had this exchange.

It is because the fidelity in our words is not always easy that Jacques gives us some lines of thought about the mastery of the language (James 3.2-14).

An action for today

Did you realize that some of your comments were not the exact reflection of what you had heard or seen ? There is no point in making you feel guilty, but simply address yourself to the Lord as follows : "Lord, forgive me for those words that were not the faithful reflection of things, help me develop a good command of my language, so that it become a source of life ".

Paul Calzada

Source (The Thought of the Day)