Mind Your Business

How often do we feel alone? How many times when there is no one around to talk to do we feel like no one cares? When we try to reach out to others whether we have good news to share or bad news to share and can’t find anyone who has time to listen, why is it we feel so down?

God tells us to live a quiet life. He wants us to be accustomed to working and minding our own business. He wants us to get use to keep things to ourselves and depend only on Him in good things and in bad. Why is that? Isn’t our first inclination to share something with other people?

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 “Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.”

When good things come in our lives, don’t we pick up the phone and call someone? When good things happen we feel we need to tell someone so we go quickly to our closest friends and share. It is just human nature to tell others when we have something good to talk about.

When we have problems and issues that come up in life, we tend to talk about them as well. When we have issues where we feel down or we don’t know what to do, we go to others and talk about what happened and sometimes lean on them for support.

God wants us to communicate with others; however, He wants us to mind our business and stay busy so we aren’t getting into other people’s business. When we spend too much time in the lives of others, we tend to neglect our own lives. It may be our escape route but it is something we need to avoid.

We have often heard when someone talks about other people, they are just trying to make themselves feel better. It’s true. When others belittle or gossip about people, they usually have something in their lives they are attempting to hide or avoid.

God wants us to be an example. We can’t be an example for Him when we are bragging. We can’t be an example for Him when we are talking about our problems so much others think we are worried and not giving our issues to God to handle. We can’t be an example for God when we are talking about others.

God tells us to choose our words wisely. He wants us to stay busy and if we can’t say anything good or help someone, we need to just work quietly. We shouldn’t have to depend on anyone’s approval but God’s. When we feel the need to share good news or bad news with someone, we need to think about what we are going to say and if it is necessary to say it.

We don’t have to depend on others to enjoy life. We don’t have to depend on others to be around when we are feeling happy or when we are feeling sad. We have God to lean on in all that we do. When we choose to live a quiet life, stay busy and be an example that God wants us to be, people who are not Christians will see the example we are setting and we can make a difference.