Smartphone Compassion

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Deli Bread. I'm Sheridan Voisey and I've called today's reading Smartphone Compassion. Was the driver late with your food? You can use your phone to give him a one-star rating.

Did the shopkeeper treat you curtly? You can write her a critical review. While smartphones enable us to shop, keep up with friends and more, they have also given us the power to publicly rate each other. And this can be a problem. Rating each other this way is problematic because judgments can be made without context. The driver gets rated poorly for a late delivery due to circumstances out of his control.

The shopkeeper gets a negative review when she'd been up all night with a sick child. How can we avoid rating others unfairly like this? By imitating God's character. In Exodus chapter 34 verses 6 and 7, God describes himself as compassionate and gracious, meaning he wouldn't judge our failures without context.

Slow to anger, meaning he wouldn't post a negative review after one bad experience. Abounding in love, meaning his correctives are for our good, not to get revenge. And forgiving of sin, meaning our lives don't have to be defined by our one-star days. Since God's character is to be the basis of ours, we can avoid the harshness smartphones enable by using ours as he would.

In the online age, we can all rate others harshly. May the Holy Spirit empower us to bring a little compassion today. Today's scripture reading is from Exodus chapter 34 verses 1 to 8.

Not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain. So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning as the Lord had commanded him. And he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshipped. Let's pray together. Lord, we are so grateful for the connections that our smartphones and other digital devices enable us to have in this modern age. But for whatever reason, it is so easy to be nasty to others when we are online.

So easy to be critical or to rate others without context or compassion. Lord, we want to be like you as we use our smartphones, as we use our apps, send emails, as we engage on social media. May we be full of compassion and grace. May we be slow to anger and may we be abounding in love today. We pray it in Jesus' powerful name. Amen. Thanks for listening. I'm Sheridan Boise and today's encouragement has been provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.