"i have a prayer request."
"bless his heart."
"i am really concerned about someone right now"
"i need some council"
how many times have i said that in the past. the problem with it is i think i am able to gossip about someone if i tack one of those christian phrases onto the beginning, middle or end.
i was genuinely concerned about a friend of mine, so i asked my mom's "advice". but the problem with it all was that i really had some news no one else knew about and i had to tell someone. (no gwen it wasn't you.)
how many times do we sit in our prayer meeting groups and it turns into a gossip session in the guise of prayer requests? i think women are more prone to this than men, but don't we all fall into the same trap?
this has been in my mind and on my heart for a long while.
so what do we do? how do we fix this? gossip is one of the most hurtful and detrimental tools the devil uses in the church and everywhere else. we as christians should know better, but it happens so often.
what i have taken to doing is if i have a prayer request that i have and i can't tell anyone i write them all out and date them and put them in a box. it is my prayer box. then when the request is answered, i put the date on the back and put it in another answered prayer box. it has helped me stay away from gossip and from hurting others by words that shouldn't be said.
Posted by hill at May 14, 2004 05:22 PMAnd there's always the option to address the friend, emphasize friend, in person. Maybe talk with them about it, reason with them, take more time, sacrifice.
Posted by: Kammer at May 14, 2004 10:00 PMi'm reading an author right now who writes down little prayers and puts them in a drawer that she calls God's 'in' box -- it helps her 'hand things over' to God, to mentally categorize things and to really pray for them rather than worry.
Posted by: joy at May 14, 2004 10:26 PMI've got an outline on prayer from a challenge I gave. I've been struggling to translate the outline into HTML and post on my blog, but it touches on this.
For now though, study Paul's prayers in the Prison Epistles. That's where my outline came from.
Posted by: JRC at May 14, 2004 10:57 PMPlease note: Comments will not appear immediately. Your comment will appear upon approval by the blog's editor. We had to implement this to decrease the amount of spam that our site receives. Please forgive the inconvenience. We are looking into other, friendlier options.