S1 EP5. Gossip Is Harmless
28:37 Share

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Christ with Coffee on Ice. I am your host, Allie Yost. Happy Friday, everybody. What a blessed day to be back with you guys. I just gotta say, I'm gonna be honest, ever since I have started sitting down and recording these episodes with y'all, I have felt so filled with the Holy Spirit. It's like crazy. Like, obviously, I

you know, I feel like maybe this might even be why, you know, the enemy was so adamant with like making me postpone this. I have been postponing recording this for months and I was kind of just giving myself the excuse of like, oh, I need to have the perfect setup and I need to have the perfect home and like, you know, once this thing is done, then I'll start recording or, you know, I don't feel super confident yet. I don't even know what I'll talk about. Like, I'll just, I'll wait a few more weeks and

It's honestly, I feel like this is just another reason why he was holding me back from it. Not only because obviously this is like such a thing that God's called me to do. And I'm so grateful that like we just get to spend time every week talking about him together. It's amazing. I'm like so happy here. But it has been filling my cup, y'all. Like it has been filling me, filling my cup. I have been so grateful to have a space where I now can just talk so freely about him and

like the whole time you know what I mean like obviously I've been bringing so much of him to my social media which has been huge and like I definitely haven't been holding back but you know there are parts of me that's like ah you know you don't want to overwhelm people where you're posting about him like five times a day you know that might be too much but um here it's like I don't have to hold back at all and I wonder if that's why I feel so full like I just need you guys to know

This is huge for me too. Like this is making me feel so good. So I'm so excited to be sitting down with you guys and we have our coffee on ice. How cute is this cup? A girlfriend, a follower, a supporter of mine sent me this.

probably close to two years ago. I don't know, like a year and a half ago. It was back when I used to have a P.O. box, so that's how she sent it. And I still love them. Like, I love them so much. She made me another one that says Girly Pop on it, which I think I've already used here on the show. And anyway, it's just so cute and it kind of matches my outfit a little bit. I do have to say, it's real brave of me to be all curled up in this couch with freaking jeans on. Oh my gosh, I feel like...

I'm like losing circulation a little bit, but I wanted to dress well. I wanted to dress up for Jesus. I wanted to dress nice for you guys. I just, you know, for girly popcast, I kind of show up like however I look that day. Like sometimes, most of the time, I feel like I'm in sweats. But with this podcast, I just wanted it to be a bit more respectful because we're sitting here and we're talking about God. The least I could do is put some jeans on. But, um...

Anyway, so today's episode I'm very excited about. So today we're not necessarily breaking down any scripture. We are going to be referring to scripture, but I want to talk about something, a certain topic. And the thing that inspired me to talk about this particular topic was actually something that happened today. I was scrolling on TikTok, as we all do, and

And this girl came up, her video had gone unbelievably viral, like 2.3 million likes, like just the likes alone. So I don't know how many views she could have gotten, but millions, okay, probably 10 plus million views, an insane amount of engagement. Okay, so obviously, this is something that everyone is relating to, or at least a large portion of us can relate to.

And she was like, the girl that bullied me in high school is now ugly. And she just married someone who's ugly. And she's like laughing about it. Like it's giving like, you know, karma, it's giving revenge, it's giving, you know, whatever. And it

It really got my wheels turning in my head. And I heard the Holy Spirit and I was like, I want to talk about this on the podcast because I do believe that a version of myself, even a few months ago, would have laughed at that and commented on it and probably related to it.

and I am no saint. I'm sure I've even gotten on the internet and made a joke about the girl that bullied me in high school and kind of making fun of her now, which is just a mindset that I do not have anymore, and I want to talk about it. And I don't say this to throw any shade at this particular girl or this video. It just really sparked up a conversation in my head, and I think it'll be really,

awesome to talk about it and like tie in our faith with this. So I want to talk about gossiping and whether gossiping is actually harmless or not because I feel like a lot of times when we partake in gossiping

We think of it as like a really harmless thing. Like you're just sitting around the table like with your girlfriends. You're at lunch or whatever and you're gossiping and you're talking about the people that you went to high school with or you know there's a mutual of someone that you guys both know and you saw this happen to them or you hear someone's getting a divorce or honestly even as silly as like getting together and you guys are like did you see that Ariana Grande drama where she's dating that guy who's like the real life Spongebob, right? Okay, so

We all think it's pretty harmless and it's not always malicious, but I do think that it's important to talk about what gossiping is, where it comes from, why as individuals do we feel or find comfort gossiping?

in speaking ill of others. It could be people we know personally, or it could be total strangers. It could be celebrities. Like, why do we find comfort in that? Why do we kind of rejoice in that? Why do we rejoice in the downfall of others and like cancel culture, right? We've all gotten tied up in it. We've all gotten caught up in it. I've gotten caught up in it, y'all. None of us are safe from it. Like we've all at least done it once in our life and are guilty of it.

And so I think it's worth talking about. So gossiping is something that God has brought up multiple times in the Bible. So I have my Bible here, but I have also written them down. Y'all, I did homework. I did homework. Let me show you this. I haven't used a printer or like typed anything up probably since school, literally since school. Look at me go. Okay. So I also do want to apologize if I'm not making a whole ton of eye contact with

with the camera. I've written down so much. So I'm going to be reading a lot of what I already wrote down earlier today. But there is so much scripture in the Bible that tells us and warns us, God warns us of gossiping and speaking ill of other people. I'm

that says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Because a lot of times, I would say probably about 90% of gossip is untrue. 90% of gossip is...

It's giving telephone. Like, you know the game that we played when we were kids where, you know, the first person says something and then the next person and then it's a completely not even close to what the first person had said, right? It's been twisted and misunderstood so many times. A majority of gossip is untrue. So when Psalm 34 13 says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies, it's

It's not that we are evil people when we gossip, okay? But the act of talking about others when we don't have all the information, when it's not our business to be talking about them, when we're speaking ill of people that we don't even know personally or we do personally, we're talking about their personal lives when honestly we have no right to. It is an act of evil.

It's an act of evil, but it's definitely not something that God has called us to do. And it's not something Jesus would do. And as Christians, we need to walk to become the closest we can to how Jesus walked, right? So you didn't see Jesus gossiping or talking ill about anyone. James 1 26, those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues, deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.

That one made me go, oh my gosh, how many times do we see people running around calling themselves these almighty holy Christians? And then after Sunday church, they're going out to brunch and they're talking about their neighbor down the street and how they're getting a divorce. And you know, their husband doesn't love them. And you heard them that he's sleeping with the

Friggin housekeeper, whatever. Okay. But it's like if you are going to call yourself a true Christian, then that means that we are going to do everything in our power to hold our tongues and not be tempted to talk ill about other people. Your religion is worthless.

If you don't actually practice it like fully, right? You don't get to just pick and choose what you agree with from God and do those things. But then if you don't agree with other things and gossiping and all those other things brings you joy and you don't want to listen to him.

It doesn't matter how many boxes you check off in all the other categories. There is no exception. Like, your religion is worthless then if you are not practicing essentially what you preach, you know? Proverbs 11:13: "A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret." You know that friend

That you had or could have or that person you knew or maybe that person you worked with whatever and they always came to you with like a new story about someone that they know or like they have a new like, oh my gosh, do you want the tea? Oh my gosh, guys. You'll have no idea what happened to so-and-so and then it's just like they just know everything about everything that's going on in everyone's lives and then they're just spewing it and just dumping it. I...

I have definitely encountered people like that in my life where I, when I started to realize how much of a red flag it was, like I used to never think anything of it. I was like, oh, whatever. It's just like harmless gossip. Like we're just like chit chatting. Like I want to know. I want to know. And then once my mind started to change, I started to see that and I was like, ooh,

That's kind of a red flag. Like, you're not going to look at this person in confidence, right? You're going to look at this person as they're not very trustworthy and they can't keep a secret. That's for darn sure. Like, I don't want to tell anything personal to them about my life because because if they're out here talking about everybody else to me, that does not mean that I'm off limits.

If I tell that person anything that's going on in my life, I'm going through difficulties, I'm having problems in my personal life, whatever, and I'm confiding in them. And then they turn around and they tell people and they're airing out my dirty laundry just as they were doing those people to me. Red flag, y'all. Red flag. And as Christians, don't we want to be trustworthy? Like, don't you want somebody to be like, oh, Allie,

Oh my gosh. I would trust her with my life. Like I legitimately know that I could come to her with anything and I would trust her with my life. I would trust her with my children. Like I know that I could always rely on her. She is always there for me. She's always supportive and she respects me enough to keep things between us. It's also like a respect thing, you know? Like you just want

people to know that you are reliable and that you do respect them enough to keep certain things between the two of y'all if that's what they would wish for it to be. And

all of us have fallen short of that. Like we have all probably slipped up and gossiped about other people when it wasn't right for us to do, but that's why we need God and we need the Bible and we need the word because it reminds us over and over again to not partake in any of that. Whether gossiping didn't mean direct harm, any one of us who has experienced the feeling of being talked about knows how hurtful it can be regardless of the intention of the gossiper, okay? So

After that moment, there will always be a sense of broken trust and hurt feelings. I do believe that even if we are talking harmlessly about other people...

If that person were to have found out or did find out and you apologized and you were like, listen, it meant nothing. Like we literally like we didn't mean any harm by it. I didn't mean to betray you. I didn't mean for you to like not trust me. You can trust me from now on. Like, I'm sorry. I kind of just slipped up. I thought they also knew. Like, I don't know. It's one of those two where it's like, oh, well, I thought they knew. Like, I'm so sorry. But from then on, like y'all know the feeling.

If somebody's betrayed you and they've proven to you that they are capable of doing something, it is very hard to trust them again. And I don't say that to say that like, you know, it's just one shot and like whatever. But when it comes down to trust...

Like, and trusting someone, trust is a very hard thing to repair after you've broken that with someone, right? So after that moment, there will always be a sense of broken trust and hurt feelings that will always haunt that person, you know?

not saying any of this to make any of us feel guilty y'all there is nothing to feel guilty about the past is the past God's forgiven us and you have an opportunity today to change your behavior from now on your past does not define you we can learn from it and it can mold us into the individual that we will be today but like all the times that I've partaken in gossip and I've probably said not so nice things about people or I've made judgment

of freaking celebrities online that I do not know personally, okay? I'm not gonna allow that to define me though because I know the type of person I am now and I know the morals that God has embedded in me now and he's shown me and I've realized that I don't wanna be that person anymore. And a lot of times it was so harmless, but I think that that's why it's so important to have these conversations because we don't realize the damage that we're doing. Another thing that God reminds us

over and over is how powerful our tongue is. Meaning there is so much more depth to our words than we even realize. There's that saying that we all grew up with as kids that was like,

sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Words will never hurt me. And as much as that is obviously, you know, encouragement, it's supposed to be an encouraging message. It's also just not true. Like we are taught that people can say whatever they want and it won't affect us. But in reality, it does and it can. We all have that thing

Or that one thing that still haunts us to this day or a few things that people have said about us in the past. We have that one thing that somebody said about us in high school 12 years ago that is engraved in our memory and we can't let it go. We can't even remember what we wore two days ago. We don't even know what we ate for lunch yesterday. We don't remember those things, but we will remember the things that people said about us 12 years ago. Why?

Why do we still remember those things? We still remember it because our words are powerful, y'all. Our words are powerful and they are impactful. We have such a weapon in our words and we can either use it to put down others and essentially ruin their self-confidence, their self-worth, ruin careers, relationships, or...

We could use our words for good. We could use our words to encourage one another. We could use our words to love one another. We could use our words to express gratitude and compassion. Oh, this is good. It's also important to remember that our tongue is powerful, which means y'all, the power of prayer.

It means that prayer is also just as powerful. We need to have so much more faith, not only in God, but the power of prayer because he has given us such a superpower of our words and how impactful that is.

praying for one another it's incredible the things that we could do for good with our words you know one thing that i do want to say is that satan also recognizes the power that we do hold within our words right which is why he convinces so many of us to use our own weapons against each other rather than against him and evil right we are we're in our thoughts being like it's harmless

It's harmless. We don't even realize the harm that we are causing by partaking in gossiping and talking ill of other people. Satan's convinced us that it's harmless. And we're like, what do you mean? It's not even that big of a deal. They won't ever know. It's not like they'll ever hear it. But God hears it.

God hears it and he sees you partaking in it. The other thing that I want to just dive into a little bit deeper though is cancel culture y'all. Cancel culture is one of the worst things that happened to the internet and this generation. It is so clearly driven by the enemy because he doesn't want us to believe that people can redeem themselves for their mistakes.

God tells us all the time that he is a forgiving father and that we are going to make mistakes in life, but it is forgivable. Every sin that we make here on earth is forgivable by him. And cancel culture practices literally the opposite of that, like 180.

80. Cancel culture is you made one mistake, you slipped up in one interview, you said one thing wrong, your career is over and we're going to make sure that the entire world knows about it and we're going to make sure that your life is absolutely in shambles for that. How many times have we seen Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez pitted against each other online? It's all over my For You page on TikTok where she makes

a TikTok with, you know, Kendall Jenner and then everyone is trying to cancel her. Everyone's unfollowing her on Instagram. Y'all, I slid, I like, I definitely got caught up in that. I was out here being like Team Selena, you know, but like, ew, how icky is that? That is all such work by Satan. He wants us to ruin each other. He wants us to discourage each other. He wants us to believe that if we make one mistake publicly,

publicly or within our own lives that we are done. So evil to me. Like that is just so harmful because at the end of the day we are all human and we all are going to make mistakes. I just will never stand behind that ever again in my life. I want nothing to do with that. I believe in a God who is forgiving and kind. I believe in a God that believes that we are able to redeem ourselves and

And we can become a changed person and we can live in him and live fruitfully through him that we can make that decision to learn from our mistakes and better ourselves and get another chance. You're telling me that somebody is going to make a mistake and then just the rest of their lives is defined by that?

I don't think that's very fair. But just like what God tells us to to never fight evil with evil. Do not fight fire with fire. Do not fight insult with insult. Just because somebody has hurt you does not give you the right to hurt them back. There are a lot of things that I am not proud of and partaking in and I would justify it in. Oh, well, I have the right. It's my story. I deserve to defend myself. I can say whatever I want online.

That was me fighting insult with insult. That was me fighting evil with evil. And I do not stand by that anymore. I do not identify myself as that person anymore. And I would only hope and pray that

people would have enough grace and compassion and understanding to know and see that I have learned from those mistakes. So the next thing I want to say though is as humans, we need to reflect and ask ourselves, where does this motive to slander others come from? Anyone who gossips or

or makes it their mission to talk ill of someone is most likely someone who lacks confidence in themselves. The biggest motivator to gossip is a lack of confidence and self-worth. So the next kind of point that I want to make, right? And I'm going to refer back to Proverbs 20:19, which says, "A gossip betrays a confidence, so avoid anyone who talks too much."

Actually, we referred to Proverbs 11, 13 earlier, which was a gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Proverbs 20, 19 is a gossip betrays a confidence. So avoid anyone who talks too much, right? That's God saying, if you see that someone's talking too much about everyone else, you better run for the hills because that is not a trustworthy person. And that is not a friend that you want in your corner. So the next perspective that I want to bring to this, y'all,

is as humans, we really need to reflect and ask ourselves,

Where does this motive to slander others come from, right? Because I know a lot of us listening right now, like we're good people. Y'all are good people. I know you're a good person. I want you to know that. I'm about to, I want to comfort you and tell you that if you've partaken in this, this does not mean that we are bad humans. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. I know that you have a good heart, which is why I think it's important for us to reflect right now and say, where does this motive come from?

To partake in gossip or listen to gossip or be entertained by gossip. You're subscribed to these gossip channels on YouTube where they cover the latest gossip and drama in the YouTube community or in the celebrity world. You know, why are we entertained by that? We need to reflect and ask God to reveal what it is that's fueling this behavior.

If you find yourself, y'all, I have. I've been so much better at like catching myself, but like I even catch myself in my head, like sometimes kind of like judging people before I know the full story or whatever. And I've gone, God,

I'm stopping. I'm stopping in my tracks. I do not want to partake in that. I don't want to think ill of anyone. I don't want to talk ill of anyone in my head. I'm not partaking in any of these gossip channels. Whenever I see something come up on my For You page that's like, you know, just like a gossipy, whatever, they're talking about the next drama with Justin Bieber or whoever, I'm scrolling. Like,

Like I'm scrolling. I'm not even entertaining it. I'm not partaking it. I'm not allowing that behavior like in my atmosphere. But it's taken work and a lot of self-awareness gifted by God though. He has given me that. I really do believe that the reason we find entertainment in gossip though is deeply rooted in our confidence. Because if you are a confident human and you have so much self-worth,

in God, right? He is the one that gives us confidence. He's the one that reminds us that we are worthy of his love and we are enough for him. If you truly really believe that, you don't need to feel better about yourself by watching someone else's life go down in flames.

Or, like, someone's love life go down in flames. Like, you're single and, like, miserable or, like, I don't know, you're in a relationship that you're unhappy in so it makes you feel better to see that, like, so-and-so from the latest Bachelorette is now divorced. Like, we think it's harmless, but it's so harmful. Not only to us, because you're just feeding...

That insecurity with things that are just not going to fulfill it long term, like that stuff is not going to make you feel better about yourself long term. That's why we keep going back to it. Like, that's why we need the newest update and we need like the newest, you know, scandal.

Like if it just took one scandal, none of these freaking gossip channels would ever have a chance. Anything that's not sent from God will only ever dry up and it's not going to satisfy you forever. And partaking in that stuff is not sent from God, which is why we are never fully satisfied forever on that stuff.

The only thing that will make you feel better about yourself forever and all eternity is Jesus. He is the source. He is the life. He is the water. He is the fruit. He is the answer to honestly everything. Honestly, everything. But truly, I think the biggest thing that we can do is humble ourselves. Go in front of God and pray to him and ask him to reveal what it is that is fueling this

this behavior of gossiping about others i don't want to be that person i don't want to find comfort in that type of stuff i want to find comfort in you he'll know your heart you know like he knows your heart he knows your heart he knows you're genuine so that the next time that somebody comes to you and they're like oh my god did you see so and so you'll be able to pivot change the subject and

and not partake in it. That's the other thing is that if you don't know how to move forward with like, if you have people in your life that are used to kind of gossiping with you and like they come to you with the next hottest tea and you truly don't want to partake in it, girl, change the subject. Girl, change the subject. Girl,

be dry with your responses if they're like, oh my. The only thing that fuels gossip though is the, is the, oh my God. Like that's what fuels the gossip. So like if you're being dry and you're like, yeah, I don't know. I didn't hear anything about that. Okay. Anyway, so let me tell you though, like work today was change it, change it, pivot.

Just pivot. And the next thing I want to say is we are not perfect. We're going to slip up. This is not something to feel guilty about. This is just something for us to all work on as humans. Let's all just become the better versions of ourselves starting right now. I also wrote out a little prayer and I think that this will be really beneficial for all of us to pray and just sign out this episode with to end it on a note of hopefulness and

feeling renewed after this episode, right? We all have a goal that we have set for ourselves now moving forward, okay? Dear God, I pray that if I ever feel the urge to talk ill of anyone, even simply inside my own head, you give me the strength to stop in my tracks. I pray that when I get caught up in gossiping with others or even entertaining it, you remind me that it only causes harm and this is not something you call us to do to one another.

Help me stay compassionate and keep my heart full of love for others. I pray to never celebrate someone's downfall since that feeling is so clearly sent from the enemy. God, fill me with the reassurance and confidence that I am enough in your eyes and I am so loved by you. With having this confidence and knowing that I am enough, I will lose the temptation of gossiping about other people's lives.

God, I thank you for your forgiveness since I have partaken in gossip in my life and continually thank you for teaching me how to become more like Jesus and becoming the godly person you have meant for me to become. In your life-changing name.

Amen. Isn't that good? I came up with that one all by myself, you guys. You guys. Anyway, that was good, y'all, right? That was good. A little heavy, a little eye-opening, a little humbling for all of us, but...

So important to talk about. And again, I don't want anyone to feel shame or guilt. You are just as human as I and you are just as human as the next. So please do not feel guilty. I think the one thing that we can do moving forward is just to continue to walk a little more like Jesus. So let's do just that, y'all. Let's walk a little bit more like Jesus today.

He has set such an amazing example for us and I am so proud of you guys. Thank you for being here. I love y'all. I hope you have a blessed week and I will see you next time. Bye.

If you guys can't wait until next Friday for another episode, you are in luck. Subscribe to our Patreon where you will have early access to future episodes and occasional surprise bonus episodes. Make sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok for more content. And if this episode spoke to you, please write us a five-star review since it helps the podcast so much. We'll see you guys next time.