Proverbs 11:13
A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.
A very close friend of mine shared a short video with me that she had made on the Internet. She asked me to not send it to anyone. It was so hilarious. She had used a photo of herself in the video and she was the main attraction of the humor. Every time that I would watch it, I would burst out in laughter. One afternoon shortly afterwards, I had about four friends visiting at my house who were all pretty close friends of this woman. I asked them if she had sent the video to them? Everyone said no. I proceeded to tell them how it was so funny but I did not give any details. One of the ladies said "show it to us" and I replied "I can't, she asked me not to share it with anyone." Then one of the gentlemen who was there said "come on she won't care." So I gave in and we watched and laughed together.
Very soon afterward I talked to her and told here that I had shown them. She was very upset with me and I tried to defend myself by saying that she did not tell me I couldn't show anyone the video, she had asked me not to email it to anyone. I could tell that she was not going to let me off the hook. Two days later the conviction of the Lord came on me and I called her and admitted to her my wrong doing. In the coming days, I noticed she was acting very different towards me. She was not nearly as friendly as she usually was.
Two weeks had past now since I had betrayed my friends confidence, she was still acting very distant towards me. One afternoon I was having lunch with the youth pastor from my church. While we were eating, we began to talk about gossip and how it causes problems. Then he said that he had once heard an illustration of what gossip was like. "Gossip is like taking a feather pillow with one end open and slinging the feathers everywhere, no matter how hard you try to clean all the feathers, it takes a long time to pick up the mess."
