Shhhhh! / Titus 3:1-2

"Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable, and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men." Titus 3:1-2

The past few years have held a bit of a dilemma for me. A couple of people I worked with operated in a manner I just didn't agree with. I had to deal with them and the backlash of how they treated other people. The difficulty is not in telling the truth. The challenge of grace is to tell the truth in the spirit of grace and love. For me that has meant there were times when I had to bite my tongue and not interject a comment about them into some conversations. Sometimes, in the middle of a statement I could sense the Spirit convicting me that I was going over the line. Shhh!

Two interesting thoughts here. One, the word for slander in the Greek is where we get the word blaspheme. It also has a sense of to vilify. To be honest, I kind of look at these people as villains.  But, I don't need to go on and on about how bad they are. Frankly, their actions have spoken louder than anything I could say and their reputations are set in stone. My response is to be peaceable and considerate with a healthy dose of humility. Shhh!

I think it was the movie Jumanji where a character tries to cheat the game by rolling early and his penalty is to be turned into a monkey. Another character asks him if he cheated and he replied something like he just tried to get ahead and she said, "That would be cheating." Sometimes we want to say, "I just..." and the Spirit says, "That would be wrong. Shhh!"

Trust God to deal with others, you just do what is right. 

Father, help us to do what is right by faith and to do what is good. Praise be to you in us today!