Keeping The Right People In & The Wrong People Out

“He Who Covers a Transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates friends.” – Prov. 17:9 (NKJV)

For the past 21 days I have been going through the book of Proverbs and reading one chapter a day for each day of the month. I am absolutely amazed at the “nuggets” of truth that have been uncovered; they aren’t necessarily “heavy revi’s” but they are scriptures that speak to me where I am. That’s the amazing thing about the Bible; although it was written thousands of years ago it can still speak to you today where you are in life. That’s the difference between truth and revelation. Truth is where God has been; revelation is where God is.

After reading this verse I stopped everything and read it again. I began to think of situations and people in the past that I have trusted and other’s have trusted that haven’t covered transgressions but have told everyone about what happened. If you want to be a person of trustworthiness then we need to become “covering” people. I am sure we all go to church with the “concerned prayer people.” You know the person I am talking about; they are the ones that, when word gets out about someone OR something they go to that person and tell them that they want to pray for them and they need to know what happened. They are no more concerned about what happened then I am a Rhoad’s scholar. They don’t care about the situation they only care about gossiping about it to other people.

That’s why we need to be careful with who we allow access into our lives. We need to have people in our lives that are doors AND walls. The door people are the people that see a good thing coming your way and open they way for you to receive it. Those same people need to be walls and when there is a bad thing coming they block it and don’t allow it.

When you allow someone close to you that doesn’t know what to be when to be that they will be doors when they need to be walls and let bad things in and they will be walls when they need to be doors and not allow good things to come. The people you allow in your “inner circle” need to be people that will “cover” you and not speak of things you have spoken to them about. I have three people that I can confide in and talk to about issues that I am facing and I KNOW that they aren’t going to tell anyone. It didn’t happen overnight and it came with time. I was able to tell them little things and over time I began to realize and trust them that what I was saying to them would not go any further. There was a situation that one of them could have sold me out and told everything we talked about but they covered me and didn’t say a word.

We need to be careful of the people that will, as Solomon told us, “…speak a matter and separate friends.”

I haven’t traveled extensively in ministry but the places that I have traveled I have seen churches “killing” their wounded. The church and the church body need to be a place of refuge and healing but it has become a place of haughty attitudes. The church was established not so we could “show off” our gifting or our suits but it was established to be a place that people could come and receive love and healing. A church is always going to reflect the attitude of the pastor. I have seen some churches on the verge of dieing and then a new pastor comes in that speaks on life and not death and the church growth explodes because the people will ultimately become a reflection of the pastor.

That is why you have to be careful when seeking counseling and guidance from your pastor. Just because he’s behind the pulpit doesn’t mean that he doesn’t gossip. Before you bare your soul to the wrong people give it time for them to earn that right.

Remember this: If a person gossips to you; they WILL gossip about you. Check back often as this is a subject that I am going to discuss and write my thoughts about regularly.