pSlander. Deliberately lying to damage someone. You can probably think of dozens of Facebook statuses like that, off the bat. But even if you’re not the type to launch a passive-aggressive ‘shouldn’t waste my time on *SOME* people *COUGH*’ status grenade, you can still be taking part in slander. Like when you’re not exactly lying about someone, but you’re selecting only negative bits of their personality to talk about. What’s that look like? Okay, silly example. Say you’ve got a friend and you don’t like how they tie their shoelaces. And you’re always first to jump on the bandwagon when others are complaining about them. Eventually your friend’s flaw becomes the main thing you think about when you think of them. So even when someone compliments them, you’re quick to jump in with an ‘Oh, but have you seen the way they tie their shoes…?’br /
The solution here isn’t an easy ‘say nice words instead’ fix. Jesus said that ‘out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks’ (Luke 6:45 ESV), meaning that if we’ve got a critical heart, then critical words are going to be what comes out. Searching for the best in other people takes work and time readjusting what your brain looks for. But it is worth it. God knows what makes people work well together, so He’ll help here if we ask Him. /p
pWhat now?br /
What’s your first reaction when you find out something negative about someone? Check your reaction against the list of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23 - on you go), and see how it holds up./p