Do not slander a servant to his master, or he will curse you, and you will pay for it (Proverbs 30:10).

I spend entirely too much of my prayer time whining to God.  Specifically, I notice that I spend too much time griping to God about other people:  how much they bother me, how much they make my life more difficult, how much I wish they'd just go away and get out of my life.  Basically, it occurs to me that I enter into prayer with the assumption that I am a good and righteous person -- and that everything would just be fine, if other people could get their crap taken care of and let me get in with my own life.  I'm good at making it sound all spiritual and godly and stuff:  "Lord, please bless Johnny So-and-So, even though he's creating so many difficulties for me right now... Lord, I just know that there's got to be some serious pain in Sally Whoziwhatsit's life -- so could you please heal that pain in her life so that we can all move on..."  But when you really break it down, it's glorified complaining and whining about other people.  And it's wrong.

Proverbs 30:10 reminds me a lot of Romans 14:1-4, where it says, "Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.  One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.  The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.  Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand."

Basically, these verses point to the fact that we are trying to position ourselves as someone else's master -- or boss, or superior, or authority -- when we judge their actions or attitudes as being "bad" or "wrong."  I (consciously or subconsciously) slander another person because it gives me a higher moral ranking, relatively speaking.  But the obvious problem with this is that I'm not the master / boss / supervisor / authority for other people's lives.  Even if I have some level of authority in another person's life (serving as their father or pastor or job supervisor), that doesn't mean that my authority stretches to all aspects of their existence.  Certainly not their personal relationship with God.  So when I try to judge someone else, or complain about someone else, or slander someone else (even if it's in my own "private" prayer life), then I'm positioning myself in a role that is not mine to play.  I'm putting myself in the place of God.  And it's impossible to put myself in the place of God without paying for it dearly at some point or another.

I love the simplicity of that question from Romans 14:3:  "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?"  The fact is that I need to look first and foremost to what God is doing in my life and not worry about others.  And even when my mind wanders, my mouth definitely shouldn't.  "Do not slander a servant to his master, or he will curse you, and you will pay for it."  When it all comes down to it, I need to mind my own business.