“Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.”

Here we go again.  Uber had a data breach and exposed 57 million people’s personal data.  It’s another in the string of what has become a crazy pattern.  USA Today released these data breach amounts:

• Yahoo: 1 billion (Dec. 2016)
• Equifax: 143 million (Sept. 2017)
• Target: 110 million (Nov. 2013)
• LinkedIn: 100 million (May 2016)
• Home Depot: 53 million, (Sept. 2014)
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management: 21.5 million (July 2015)

And then we wonder why our customers don’t trust us with their data. Our personal identity data is too important to let others be risky with it.  If we want to differentiate our businesses, we can start with making a commitment to making data security job one and insuring no identity loss.

There are many other ways that we can feel identity loss and the workplace is fraught with areas of risk. We can easily demean another with how we provide feedback, or with the tone we speak or write, or with what we share about someone to someone else.  Work, sadly, is about constantly proving our performance and with that we are also reproving who we are what we can do.  Think today about how much of our day will be about building up someone’s identity and self-esteem versus maybe, without even knowing, causing them to feel like a part of their identity has been lost.  Remember, our identity resides with Christ and we should model to others the same uplifting, encouragement, grace and mercy we receive from our Lord.

Reference: 1 Peter 2:10 (New Living Translation)