day 210: "I (For)gave At The Office"

It's a line from a time gone by; "I gave at the office". It was a phrase used at one time when someone would solicit you for a contribution like the United Way, and you could say, "I gave at the office". Sometimes you would hear it in the context of donating blood when the blood mobile would come to a workplace and you would donate there versus at church or somewhere else in the community. "I gave at the office", you could say. What is for sure is that we all "give" at the office when it comes to our time, energy, efforts and emotions. However, how often can we say that we "forgave at the office?" Work is one of those places where forgiveness is not talked about much. Seldom is someone coached to be more forgiving of others. Instead we are taught and conditioned to be suspicious, doubtful of others, and always guarded about getting "burned" or taken advantage of by our co-workers. And if someone does cross us, let us down, get political, or take a stab at us, then we are told to "watch out for that person" and "don't let that happen to you again". So, forgiveness is not high on the culture attributes of many businesses and yet, we know that we are to be forgiving in our nature and we are taught as believers that forgiveness is at the heart of how we are to conduct ourselves. But, how to reconcile these two directions? Proverbs 19:11 brings the two together for us; "Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs." We can be forgiving in our nature and still earn respect in the workplace by being controlling of our emotions when we are wronged and by not allowing ourselves to be dragged down into the muck of looking for the wrongs and blame in others. I don't believe that this means we are to walk around allowing ourselves to be hurt and attacked by rolling over and not pushing back, but it does mean letting it go quickly and getting past whatever the issue might be with a true sense of forgiveness and a clear and peaceful mindset. Writer and pastor David Wilkerson says this about how to act when we have been wronged and we have let our emotions take over; "we’re to do nothing until our anger has subsided. We’re never to make a decision or follow through with any action while we are still angry." Today, we are going to be asked to "forgive at the office". It is likely to happen multiple times. We are going to be given the choice to take a path of forgiveness, humility, and peacefulness, or take the path of anger, vindictiveness, and harboring of ill will. I think we all know the path we are supposed to take. At work true forgiveness is the path less taken, but it is the one that we are supposed to be walking. Let's see if tonight when you get home we can say, "Today, I forgave at the office"!

Reference: Proverbs 19:11 (New Living Testament)