Comments and Blogs…God Still Knows Who You Are

The fungus is among us...my backyard

Once upon a time, before Facebook and Google took away the cloak of anonymity, chatters had some very imaginative screen names.  Essentially, you could comment and live chat with anyone and say whatever you wanted.   After all, no one knew who you were.

Then journals and blogs exploded into Cyberspace, and the rest is history still being written, often anonymously. 

Over the years, under the guise of being anonymous, I have formed two blogs that I, as a Christian, had no business even considering.   One blog in particular, was a parody of some real-life local bloggers who were blogging in revenge against another local blogger.  While mine was funny (to me, anyway) it still did make fun of some very real circumstances and real people.   Thankfully, God dealt with me, and it wasn’t long before I deleted the blog. 

Then there are comments…what we say in comments might be the truth…in our own opinions based on the facts that we know and see…but is it necessary that we say everything we think?    For years, I have used a variation of my name to post comments, very direct, blunt, and sometimes unnecessary comments.  Why?  Well, because sometimes I have an urge to use snarcasm (snarky sarcasm) or to chastise someone I feel has wronged another.  I was in the wrong to do it…and I won’t do it anymore.

Years ago, God had already dealt with me on making comments that, while were not (always) sinful in nature, my attitude was.   There were forums that I liked to visit and discuss current events.   If someone was just ridiculously off base and obnoxious, I had no compunction in handing out remarks made to cut them down to size.   During the midst of my commenting heyday, I had a dream that I was batting nasty words back and forth with an unknown man, and I had made him really mad.  He was so frustrated and he kept trying to hit me.   But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t manage to connect.   I knew (in my dream) that the man already had lots of problems.   When I woke up, I knew in my heart that God was telling me that my words were hurtful to others who often already had issues.  So I quit making them.  For a while.   

Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains

Last year was a really bad year for me.   No need to detail all the issues, but I let the situation beat me down when I didn’t have to, and for a while, I even stopped going to church.  (Because that’s always the answer, right?)   I also made more unnecessary comments with my alter ego.   Some folks figured it out easily enough, others probably not, but the point is that it’s no better to say things “behind the cloak” than it is to say it behind one’s back, or to be unnecessarily hurtful to one’s face.  People tend to get a little braver when no one knows who they are.   But even if our identity is hidden from the world, God still knows who we are, and exactly where we are.  He expects us to treat others how we, ourselves, want to be treated.   He wasn’t joking about the golden rule.  

It doesn’t matter if someone else isn’t behaving as I think they should, it’s not my job make them see things my way.  My job is to live my life as I know God wants me to live it.  Matthew 12 tells us that we will have to give an answer for the words that we speak, and I will have enough to answer for without adding to it with words I didn’t have to say or type.