I heard a sermon recently by a young pastor on the subject of waiting on the Lord.  He had a lot of good things to say about how hard it can be to wait.  He illustrated the theme by telling of a visit to the doctor some years back that had involved cooling his heels in the waiting room for an hour and a half.  He then went on to describe in vivid, scathing detail what ensued in the visit – a disagreement with the doctor as to whether or not his elevated blood pressure was due to a medical condition or simply to his extreme anger at having had to wait so long.  The pastor named the doctor, the city where he practiced, and stated that he was still practicing, “though I don’t know how”.

For a long time now, God has been “tenderizing” me over my own loose tongue when it comes to such name-dropping.  Although name-dropping by public speakers bothers me because of the wider audience they have, it is no different than what most of us do with all too great a frequency in our own conversations.  There is something in us that seems to delight in airing not just how we “done been wronged” but who in particular “done it”.

My high school years were hellish.  For most of those years, I was under the leadership of a particular pastor, with occasional contact with a student ministry director at the college my siblings attended.  Both, through commission and omission, influenced my life for the worse, missing what (to ME) seemed like obvious opportunities to have helped me.  By God’s grace, I survived those years without killing myself or getting involved with the drugs my friends used.  Once in college (in another state!), He turned my life around and set my feet on a new path.  But the hurt from those earlier years didn’t just disappear.  For many years after, when I told my story of God’s redemption, I included a full description of just what poor leaders those two men had been, and I named names.

Over time, however, God gave me some different perspective.  He pointed out that I was still looking at those men’s actions as I had as a confused, hurting, immature teen – not as the adult I had become.   I had accused both men of not caring, but on re-examining the issue, I realized that they did care, but were untrained and inexperienced in dealing with my type of situation.  Did they make some really poor decisions, give some lame responses, take some inappropriate actions?  Absolutely – just as I have myself in my own ministry and parenting.  God showed me that what I was doing was, in fact, slander –  speech for the purpose of defaming or unjustifiably attacking a person’s reputation.  Yes, they did what they did – but those were not the ONLY things they did.   On the whole, both men had successful ministries in their respective spheres.  My stories unfairly ignored all the good they did for the sake of the particular “failures” involving me – and I wanted the rest of the world to condemn them for my sake.  (Sounds ugly, but it’s the truth.)  My slander of these men was just as wrong as the actions that I held against them! 

[I wrote to both men and asked forgiveness for having spoken so, which may or may not have been the wisest thing to do, since, as far as I know, they had had no idea I held such a grudge against them in the first place.  Writing made me feel better, but it may have been easier for them if I hadn’t!  Anyway, I told them that they didn’t have to respond, I just wanted to get it off my chest, as it were.  One wrote back anyway, and his gracious words of forgiveness, and humble request for the same for anything he had done to give rise to that hurt, are among the most treasured letters I’ve ever received. ]

Because of this experience from my own life, I do think about some questions now that I didn’t used to, whether the story is told for illumination, comparison, or just entertainment.  Are you absolutely sure you have a godly perspective on this?  If you’re honest, would you have to admit that you’re telling the story less for the benefit of the hearers and more to satisfy a sense of revenge, or just to make yourself look good by comparison?   Are you sure you are judging justly?  Do you truly believe that all of that person’s character or career should stand condemned because of what you hold against him?  That is, if your story is all someone ever knows about Mr. X, will it be a fair representation?  What if, unknown to you, the person now regrets what she did?  How would you feel about having spread the story then?   How do you think the person (or their family or friends) would feel to hear that story told about him?  Even if the story isn’t slanderous, but simply puts the subject in an unflattering light, would you want to be talked about in that way?  Could you tell the same story using a fictitious name, or “a friend of mine”, or “someone in our family”, instead?

I still trip up on this point far too often, but I’m trying to remember that if the name isn’t germane to the point of my story, rather than name-drop, I should just drop the name!