Confidence Keepers - The One Year Daily Acts of Kindness Devotional

Confidence Keepers

A gossip goes around telling secrets, but those who are trustworthy can keep a confidence.

Proverbs 11:13

While keeping confidences is an integral part of my job as an attorney, I long ago learned the value of being a person who listens without repeating what I’ve been trusted with. Many times, people simply need to speak out loud as they process a scenario and don’t need any particular input from me other than being actively present, actively listening. After we’ve hung up the phone, or after we’ve given one last hug outside the coffee shop before jumping into our cars, I have decisions to make about the information I’ve learned.

And unless it is necessary to share in order to protect or help someone in danger, I don’t repeat it.

In a culture that overshares and encourages “friendships” that can be better defined as “frenemies,” letting interesting tidbits go unspoken requires swimming against the cultural tide. It requires guarding our words and our tongues and checking our hearts before deciding to share.

Do I fail at this? Yes. Sometimes I do. But I strive to practice the art of secret keeping, and I find that it gets easier and easier to let the things I learn in confidence stay there, unspoken and not repeated.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain things that must be shared, that could do great harm if left unspoken and secret. I’m talking here about the things that do harm when repeated—that expose a woman in her weakness, in her worst moment, in her vulnerability. I’m talking about sharing things about another person that are calculated to show our superiority or to raise our social standing within a group by exposing someone else.

We, as people who love and follow Christ, are called—are required—to cover one another with grace. This means we choose not to expose another’s struggle for all the world, our church congregation, or our circle of friends to ridicule behind polite smiles and secret snickers. We are called to unity, not division. When we are people who can listen compassionately without repeating what we’ve heard and who let juicy gossip die instead of repeating it, it builds community, builds up those around us, and sets us apart as trustworthy.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

The next time you hear a secret you feel tempted to repeat, practice keeping it to yourself.