05.06.09 The 7th Practice for Responding to Negative Gossip About You
7. Screen your ‘Friends’
When your confidential information leaks to the public in the form of negative gossip, it well may be that you trusted a so-called ‘friend’ who decided to hang your secrets on the street for workmates and other people to hear and gossip about. In Psalm 41:6, David lamented about such a situation. Here is what he said (NLT): 6They visit me as if they were my friends, but all the while they gather gossip, and when they leave, they spread it everywhere. That scripture alerts us that some so-called friends will visit you just to pick gossip and broadcast it afterwards.
One of the major mistakes I made when the rumour about us surfaced, was failing to objectively screen the so-called friends that I thought would help extinguish the gossip at the time. It was much later that I ‘woke up’ and made a connection between the gossiper and the few people who I had fled to in search of a solution. Surprisingly, the connection had been there the whole time. It was so obvious but I had been too hurt to ‘see’ it to the extent of fleeing into the hands of our very enemies. In the aftermath of the gossiping incident, my ‘screening’ became more stringent as I learnt not to put things beyond people (Jeremiah 17:9).
When you look at Nehemiah 3:1, the impression you get is that Eliashib the high priest was Nehemiah’s ally, having been the very first to start building the wall. The verse reads (NKJV): 1Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They built as far as the Tower of the Hundred, and consecrated it, then as far as the Tower of Hananel. So, at face value, one would think that Eliashib and Nehemiah were ‘partners’ who viewed Tobiah as a common enemy since he (Tobiah) was against the wall rebuilding project. What is surprising though, and as already mentioned elsewhere, is that Eliashib and Tobiah were so close that the high priest defied Nehemiah’s stand. See what the bible reveals in Nehemiah 13:4-9 (ERV): 4But, before that happened, Eliashib had given a room in the temple to Tobiah. Eliashib was the priest in charge of the storerooms in our God’s temple. And he was a close friend of Tobiah. That room had been used for storing the grain offerings, incense, and the temple dishes and things. They also kept the tenth of grain, new wine, and oil for the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers in that room. And they also kept the gifts for the priests in that room. But Eliashib gave that room to Tobiah. Notice that all that was done behind Nehemiah’s back, while he was away in Persia. The situation continues in the same chapter, where Nehemiah narrates what befell him (ERV): 7So I came back to Jerusalem. There I heard about the sad thing that Eliashib had done. He had given Tobiah a room in the temple of God!8I was very angry about what Eliashib had done, so I threw all of Tobiah’s things out of the room. 9I gave commands for the rooms to be made pure and clean. Then Iput the temple dishes and things, the grain offerings, and theincense back into the rooms. Therefore, if we were to use theword ‘friend’, though it may sound far-fetched, could it be that Nehemiah did not do a thorough job of screening Eliashib before believing in him to the extent of being hurt when he eventually showed his claws? It was only in Nehemiah 13:28 that Nehemiah discovered that one of Eliashib’s grandsons had married Sanballat’s daughter, thence making the high priest a son-in-law of his (Nehemiah’s) enemy. By then, Tobiah had already profaned the temple. Undoubtedly, a proactive and thorough screening of friends would have saved the day.
Reading the JuaLink story, Faraja should have allocated time to ‘learn’ Lulu before disclosing any secrets, rather than accepting the publicity officer’s offer of friendship ‘this minute’ and sharing secrets ‘the next minute’. By studying Lulu first, the new manager would have discovered that not only was the publicity officer’s friendship cosmetic, but that she was a chronic negative gossiper and therefore not worth trusting with personal private issues.
Therefore, when a rumour about ‘you’ breaks, screen your ‘friends’ thoroughly to trace the person who could have disclosed your confidential information. Once you identify the traitor, consider ‘putting a distance’ in your relationship. Limit what you say in his or her presence as well as the time you spend with that person.
Since prevention is better than cure, choose your close friends wisely, as already advised elsewhere. Even then, you cannot trust a colleague one hundred percent when you just got to know him or her the other day! Therefore, accord ample time to study people so that you can ascertain who to trust with what information; and, to whatdegree. Supposing you are convinced that a new friend could be worth trusting, start by disclosing scanty information in small doses to begin with, rather than opening yourself ‘full-throttle’ from ‘the word go’! In all cases, remember to guard your boundaries and avoid over-sharing. Know that gossipers will not pull words out of your mouth unless you ‘yourself’ say them.
Lastly, I am going to repeat some advice that we have already discussed again and again in this book because in my experience, people overlook what I am just about to re-share here. And that is, never forget that should your so-called friend disclose people’s confidences during conversations, rest assured that she or he will definitely spill your secrets behind your back. If the person gossips against others in your presence, she or he will surely gossip against you in your absence. So, you should not myopically equip that ‘friend’ with words that she or he will use to gossip against you elsewhere or anywhere.
