Smartphone Compassion

<p>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.</p> <p>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&rsquo;d been up all night with a sick child. How can we avoid &nbsp;rating others unfairly like this?</p> <p>By imitating God&rsquo;s character. In Exodus 34:5&ndash;7, God describes Himself as &ldquo;compassionate and gracious&rdquo;&mdash;meaning He wouldn&rsquo;t judge our failures without context; &ldquo;slow to anger&rdquo;&mdash;meaning He wouldn&rsquo;t post a negative review after one bad experience; &ldquo;abounding in love&rdquo;&mdash;meaning His correctives are for our good, not to get revenge; and &ldquo;forgiving [of] sin&rdquo;&mdash;meaning our lives don&rsquo;t have to be defined by our one-star days. Since God&rsquo;s character is to be the basis of ours (Ephesians 5:1), we can avoid the harshness smartphones enable by using ours as He would.</p> <p>In the online age, we can all rate others harshly. May the Holy Spirit empower us to bring a little compassion today.</p>