A gossip betrays a
confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Proverbs 11:13
Zach
had the pedigree, the education, the looks, and the personality. He should have
been next in line for a giant promotion. But in spite of his dazzling interview
and stellar resume, the company went with an outsider. The hiring manager
sighed as he closed the file and turned to his assistant, “I would love to have
been able to promote Zach, but I just couldn’t trust him. This position
requires high confidentiality and Zach has loose lips. He loves to brag and
sometimes that bragging includes information he has no right to share. It’s a
shame. He has so much potential.”
Have
you ever considered the way others perceive your sharing of someone else’s
news? What seemed to you like a golden moment in the limelight may in fact have
been a signal to the hearers that you are not trustworthy. That slight shading
of the truth to make the story more thrilling, the "accidental"
name-dropping designed to make you seem important, the spontaneous burst of
honesty when you should have used more restraint—they seem like such minor
incidents; yet they may have closed a file you did not know about. Those juicy
tidbits of gossip may have placed you in Zach’s category, and earned you the
unofficial title of “loose lips.” Now is the time to begin earning back the
reputation you want. It starts with being painfully honest with yourself and with God. Every morning, commit
your words to the Lord and ask Him to guard your conversations (Ps. 19:14).
If ten of your acquaintances were asked about your
trustworthiness, what would they say?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment