Character Assassination

Davey is a bureaucrat. He fixes broken cities – cities that were or are politically corrupt, or economically unviable, or sometimes both. Politicians hire him because Davey has the ability to find effective and creative solutions to complex problems. When he arrives, it’s with a fanfare and a honeymoon time, but when he gets down to business, stumbling stones are thrown in his path, or right at him, because nobody likes change. Citizens and politicians say privately, “We like things just the way they are. We prefer the devil we know to the devil we don’t know.”

That’s not to say those same citizens and politicians don’t admit that there are structural, political, or economic problems. They do. It’s just that they didn’t believe, when hiring Davey, that fixing problems meant concrete change. Being frightened of change, or feeling insecure, or lacking solutions themselves, they sometimes resort not to public argument, or persuasion, but to whispered attacks, false accusations, spreading of rumors, or the use of guile and slander for character assassination, in an attempt to destroy Davey. It’s a nasty tactic.

The scriptures teach us to rid ourselves of malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander. These caustic agents hamper our spiritual growth, doing as much injury to us as to those we attack.

Let’s Pray: Dear God, when we feel the envious, or the malicious, desire to destroy another using slander or guile, touch us with insight; show us that these emotions and their tool-set are as destructive to us as to those we attack. Amen

Today’s Thought Is: The stumbling stones we intend for others may trip us.

Source:
1 Peter 2:1
Colossians 3:8-9