This is a little off the beaten path from what I had intended but I thought I would throw it out here today because it is weighing heavily on my heart.
I have never had this happen to me before and when things like this happen they cause me to think and I have been thinking today.
I have a little phrase in the signature of my email that says, "Soli Deo Gloria": All glory to God, translated.
I have had several emails asking what it means and sometimes I have had encouragement back from the people who see the words but I have never had a negative response until today.
Today I was dealing, via email, with a customer who wrote back in a polite manner and told me that this could be an offensive phrase to Catholics and, since this person was atheist, offensive in other ways as well.
I took some time to analyze this whole "encounter" and sent it to a pastor friend of mine to see what he would say.
He indicated that I should not worry about it as this person was not someone I deal with regularly and this person is also not my supervisor nor, might I add, coming from a majority view point.
What can I say here? I took it to the Lord in prayer and here is what I have concluded:
An atheist is one who does not believe in 'deity'. In other words, from my perspective they believe that there is nothing out there of the 'higher power' sort. This then tells me that if they are offended by religious leanings then they are offended by nothing. If they don't believe in a god or God then why are they offended about my belief and my adoption of a little phrase to encourage others? I can tell you that I am not offended by 'nothing' so I find it odd that an atheist would be offended by what they themselves would consider nothing. It makes me say 'hmmm'.
The best thing I can think of right now is to pray for the atheists in our lives. We are not equipped to change the heart of another but God, through the Holy Spirit can change their hearts and has changed hearts in some instances.
Good bye for now.
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