Last year Jon Acuff, wrote an article for Relevant Magazine, entitled, “7 Questions to Ask Before You Throw Down Online”.  Each of these are worth exploring in the context of purposed worKING and how we handle ourselves in the workplace and online.

“And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”

In comes the email that is full of wrong data, accusations, faulty logic, personal attacks, untruths, etc.  and to add fuel on the fire everybody and their cousins are on the cc line.  Any of the above will make us go into hyper-response mode and our anger can get the best of us in a nano-second and in a matter of a few hand shaking keystrokes we can have responded in a manner that does indelible, unrepairable damage.  Jobs, friends, confidence and trust can be lost with these kinds of responses.  So, let’s make this simple.  Never, ever, ever communicate online when angry.  Nothing good can come of it.  Even if we think that this type of communication will light a fire under others, rest assured that there are much better ways to say what you want to say if you aren’t driven by anger.

Paul calls anger a sin.  No real reason to argue with that because I know that when I am angry, I am as far away from God as I can be in that moment.  The Holy Spirit doesn’t recognize anger in us and won’t tolerate being in the same place.  Anger can so hurt others and ourselves when we let it fuel our words and actions.  Angry about something?  Step away from the keyboard and don’t come back until we’ve let God compose us first and from there we can begin again to compose the words that should be written.

Reference:  Ephesians 4:26 (New Living Translation)