"Do hard things!" My mom has read your stuff and she said that's a good motto to have. She also had us read article and watch the video recommend by Mrs. Friedrich's blog http://buriedtreasurebooks.com/w.../weblog/? p=1621

John Piper is our families favorite too! This is a good article.
Erin | Homepage | 08.09.06 - 6:22 pm | #

I logged onto your blog tonight for the first time in months and was pleasantly surprised to see that your message hasn't changed much.

As Piper said, gossip can be a very enjoyable and cruel pastime, while if it really bothered us then we would take our concerns to the actual person. I don’t know about you, but it seems that sometimes our prayer requests can become an outlet for gossiping in the name of “asking you to pray for me because so and so did this…” I’ve always thought a couple of differences between the two are your motive and the details of the request. What do you think?
Lizzie | 08.10.06 - 11:41 pm | #

Lizzie: It's so good to hear from you! Last I heard, you were graduating. Congratulations.

I definitely agree with you on the "gossiping through prayer requests" aspect. Brett's and my experience has been that gossiping (or "fishing" for gossip) can take many seemingly innocent shapes and forms.

As to the differences between the two types of prayer requests (non-gossip and gossip), I agree with you on the distinction. I believe it is primarily a matter of the heart. Our motives are very important. Are we truly just asking for prayer? Or are we seeking to spread juicy information or gain people to "our side"? At the same time, even if it's not our intention, giving unnecessary details can still serve to spread gossip, regardless of our motives.

How do you think that Jesus' words in Luke 6:45 apply to gossip? That's where He teaches that "out of the abundance of the heart [our] mouth speaks." Do you think that means that even being careless with our words is a sign that our heart isn't in the right place?
Alex Jordan Harris | Homepage | 08.11.06 - 8:32 am | #

That's a great reminder on gossip. Sometimes, we often talk about people instead of talking to them, thus leaving everything unsolved if there are any problems.
Thanks for the post! :)
Alyssa C. | Homepage | 08.15.06 - 4:14 am | #