Don’t share everything.
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Matthew 7:6
Most of us have shared something with someone else that we wished we hadn’t.
The other person might not have valued what we shared or might have misunderstood our intentions.
Jesus warned us not to share everything when He said, Do not cast your pearls before swine.
This idea of being transparent does not mean we have to share everything with everyone
or live up to others’ expectations of what should be shared.
I knew an important woman in the church who seemed to take pliers and extract information from me,
information I didn’t want to share. She always seemed to delve in and afterward,
I felt violated and had many regrets of what I had told her.
She asked question after question and it was difficult to avoid them.
They were very probing questions ‘because she cared so much’.
She then used that information to manipulate me. It was a form of control.
It was emotional control and otherwise.
I actually cared about her, but hated being around her because I had to deflect all the questions she had.
She never seemed to understand how I felt when I didn’t want to share everything.
Another form of control would be when she got angry if I didn’t want to answer her questions.
She was a gossip and a slanderer and would share that which she learned with others.
This is a very strong thing to say, but this particular lady was performing a type of witchcraft
because she was manipulating me to get information, which I did not want to give.
She then used the information to control me.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Luke 4:8
There are a lot of people who like to play God, who want to control others,
to tell them how they should behave, what they should say, how they should say it
or even what they should do.
We are all individuals that God made.
We are not going to be the same. If we are, we are following men and not God. Be yourself.
I am not interested in telling others how to live their lives.
I do not want to be responsible for their decisions.
Choices are theirs to make, even if I think they are wrong.
For me to tell others what to do is assuming a larger part of their life that I am to have.
I am not God nor am I them.
I can pray, give advice carefully as the Holy Spirit leads,
but to direct others in their choices is not up to me.
I will not be representing them before God on Judgment Day.
That role belongs to Jesus.