The “after whisper” …

After she walks by, the other teenage girls roll their eyes and giggle …

After he walks by your office and says hello, you raise an eyebrow and exchange knowing expressions with a co-worker …

After shaking hands with the visitor at church, you contain a laugh to just a smile and lean in to your spouse and whisper …

… and by the “after whisper” you have done the work of both judge and gossip.

We like to think of ourselves as people who neither judge nor gossip about others, so we practice the shorthand version of both: the “after whisper.” It’s that little whisper of a single sentence, just the slightest of comments with a knowing expression, and you’ve shared with someone else what you’re trying to hide in your heart.

The problem is, what you’re trying to hide in your heart.

Just as Jesus taught that to lust after a woman was to commit adultery with her in one’s heart (Mt. 5:28), the “after whisper” is an attempt to make a judgment and share it without being guilty of it.

But you know what is really in your heart.

And so does God.

“Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions,” Proverbs 18:2.

“The mouths of fools are their ruin; they trap themselves with their lips. Rumors are dainty morsels that sink deep into one’s heart,” Proverbs 18:7-8.

But it’s just a little whisper!

“For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all,” Luke 8:17.

For all the effect that whisper has on your own heart, and the heart of the one you whisper to, you may as well be yelling.

Scotty