"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him." Luke 14:28-29.
Few things in life are as important as thinking a thing through to its possible conclusions, analyzing important decisions, and anticipating all possible eventual consequences. This is needful whether you are considering marriage, building a building, launching a business or raising a family. Pity the person who hasn't learned to count the cost of a negative comment or action, a word spoken in anger, a malicious attack upon a perceived enemy, without considering its damage and consequences. Before you do any of these things in whispers, gossip or on Facebook .... look ... look ahead, but don't just look ... see. Besides the damage done to them or others, ask yourself what that person might know, or can do, against you, that you forgot about, never knew they knew or you just didn't think before you spoke.
I once knew a person who, in a fit of anger, spread evil accusations about a former friend ... before she suffered far more damaging repercussions by that person's clear memory of his accuser's sexually promiscuous youth. In her earlier life, she had prostituted herself, had been a drug addict with all the attending consequences of venereal disease, numerous arrests and abortions. Now, because she allowed herself to blurt out injurious accusations against her former friend, everyone knew about her own past, so she fled to another state for anonymity and withdrew into a shell.
Another example, I once read about, was an old widower who was dying, in the hospital, and was thought, by his children, to be in a coma. They were all gathered in his room awaiting his slow death. Having run out of things to say, they began to discuss what they each were planning to do with their share of his estate after his death. His eldest daughter wanted a new wardrobe, a facelift, and a Mercedes. One of them wanted a world tour, another a Country Club home, another just wanted the money. Then his youngest daughter said, "I just want my daddy back". She got her wish ... he revived, remembered their conversation and made her his sole heir before he finally passed on ... and got out of their way .... and they out of his.
Before you twist another's reputation askew
Think the vile thought all the way through
Lest it be you who is found in a nasty stew
And all now know the loathsome one is you.
Yes, I said it ... Rayburn Blair
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