Have you ever said or posted something stupid? You know, the flippant comment about someone that was not favorable? Sure, you have. We usually follow it with this scripture from Proverbs 26:19 “I was only joking!” Yep, there ya go, thousands of years ago King Solomon told us, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 Or more recently the philosopher Forrest Gump, said it this way, “Stupid is as stupid does.” We will repeat the cycle of saying & posting stupid things until we break out of the loop.

Today, like never before, people’s lives can be hurt, even destroyed, in minutes over the internet. Like the horrific wildfires in California, one spark takes on a life of destruction. It appears to be a pandemic with children & adults. It starts with the Emotional Need to be accepted & included + 1 Insecure & Hurting Person + People Being Used To Pass On Information = Hurt or Destroyed Lives. People, children & adults, are not prepared for life. When this happens, we deal with it using the worlds ways…we fight & argue.

So, what is the solution? Let’s go to God’s Guidebook for Living, the Bible. We find in Proverbs 23:7, why we say stupid & hurtful things, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Ouch! What you & I say & do is a product of what we think. What we think is a product of our values and our values are the product of what you & I believe in our heart. How’s your heart? Is it as healthy as the heart of Jesus? Only Jesus can be our standard.

Good News, only Jesus can take a hurting, sick heart and transform it to health. It begins with daily prayer & searching in His Word for the gold nuggets of Hope, Peace, Joy & Strength. Only Jesus can transform our self-centered life to a life of purpose. When we accept & live in His way…that is when we discover only Jesus gives us value. Nothing anyone says or does has power to take our value away. We can’t be offended. A God School Note: Occasionally Jesus will give us a “Pop Test”. He is pointing to an area that we need to work on when we get offended.

And finally, there is the age-old matter of gossip. I never thought of gossip as being too bad, but God does. In Romans 1:29, “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.” BAM! Now what do I do? We find in Proverbs 26:20 “Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.” When Jesus has transformed your heart, you recognize it for what it is. This is when you walk away. It means “defriending” the person from Facebook. Don’t become fuel for the fire.

Farrar, my mother, constantly told me, “If you can’t say something nice about the person, don’t say anything at all!”