05.06.04 The 2nd Practice for Responding to Negative Gossip About You : Assess Yourself First Before Pointing Fingers
Assess Yourself First Before ‘Pointing Fingers’
In 2 Corinthians 13:5, God encourages us to examine ourselves. That verse reads (MSG): 5-9Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.
For the case of the prospective partner whose request we rejected, I have always wondered whether my earlier discussions with him could have been off-guarded and mistakenly suggestive that he could dare to boldly present his unethical agenda. Could I have failed to keep the required professional distance? Maybe I threw a joke here and there during our first meeting that gave him the audacity to think that I could compromise my integrity and entertain his request.
Looking at Nehemiah’s story, although he was not a gossiper per se, the man was very good at assessing himself and repenting to God for any shortfalls that may have occurred in his stead. We see this in Nehemiah 1:5-11, after hearing that the walls of Jerusalem had been broken down and its gates burned with fire. That scripture reads (NKJV): 5And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, 6please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. 7We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. 8Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; 9but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ 10Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. 11O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”
At JuaLink, a self-examination would have stopped Faraja from blowing up Lulu as the publicity manager would have owned the mistake of opening up her private life to ‘a Lulu’ she hardly knew, and trusting her with a secret that triggered the rumour about her gynaecological problems. Another person who would have benefitted from a self-assessment before ‘pointing fingers’ was Obed. As already extensively discussed elsewhere, had the man taken the step to appraise himself prior to blaming Faraja and Neema, he would have soberly admitted that it was his wife’s bad food that had driven the women to express their dissatisfaction; and that it was their right to complain just like any other client would have. Such a realisation would have stopped Obed from running to the board chairman with a malicious and false rumour about the two women.
Therefore, when you hear a dirty rumour about ‘you’, one of the first things you do is to check yourself before blaming the gossipers, since you could be the cause of that gossip in the first place. For instance, what mistake did you make that could have provoked the mongers to choose you as a topic? How could you have contributed to hatching the rumour and, or fueling its circulation? See how Matthew 7:1-5 advises us to conduct a self-assessment before ‘pointing finger’s (ERV): 1Don’t judge others, and God will not judge you. 2If you judge others, you will be judged the same way you judge them. God will treat you the same way you treat others. 3“Why do you notice the small piece of dust that is in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood that is in your own?4Why do you say to your friend, ‘Let me take that piece of dust out of your eye’? Look at yourself first! You still have that big piece of wood in your own eye. 5You are a hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to get the dust out of your friend’s eye.
Develop the discipline of routinely evaluating yourself even when there are no rumours on the horizon, by proactively dealing with any behaviour that could potentially provoke your people to negatively gossip against you. For instance, who are you moving with? How decent are your outfits? How do you conduct yourself at work or in other spaces? How and where do you spend your free time? Those are some of the self-assessment questions that you should ask in order to keep yourself in check. Should you find that you have been behaving in a way that has been provoking bad rumours, correct those shortfalls and make the necessary adjustments rather than overreacting, defending yourself or rushing to blame gossipers.