First published Tuesday, November 24, 2009
In today's news, there is a report about the need for people to vent, at the workplace, if they feel they are being mistreated. A decade-long study followed several thousand men around, and determined that those who bottle up their feelings have an increased risk of heart disease.
In the study, the outcome of bottled up anger includes bringing the frustrations home, and blowing up at family members, which isn't good, either!
What do we do then, about the admonition from Scripture, that we take what we are dished, with a positive attitude?
Domestics are to mind their masters with all due respect, and not just if they're kindly and fair but even if they're less than upright.
Well, I think there is the potential to confuse what it means to respect someone. How should we respect our boss, when he or she is not being fair to us? How can we do this?
Well, the fact is, that you are going to vent. We need to vent, and other parts of Scripture bear this out! And as referenced above, the venting must not be done to family! But in turn, we must not vent at people that have nothing to do with our workplace!
No, since we must vent, then the only fair thing to do is to vent at the source of the frustration: we must vent at the boss, but find a way to do it that shows respect!
Gossiping and complaining about the boss to others, is not showing respect to the boss. The only way to respect any person with whom we have issues, is to take it up to that person directly. This is true respect. But here again, Scripture supports this view. God wants us resolving our differences with others! If we backbite and gossip, we resolve nothing, and make the problem worse, by bringing others into it! Yet as humans, we resort to this approach over and over again.
There is only one way to resolve issues, with anybody, but especially with your boss. You have to talk to him or her directly. Any other way does not show grace, and fails to build God's Kingdom.
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