Salt of the Earth With a Corporate Email Address

I need to establish something immediately before somebody screenshots a paragraph, removes all context, and forwards it to Human Resources.

I love my job.

Seriously.

I have some of the best bosses I could ask for. I work with some genuinely amazing people. I also work with some not-so-amazing people, but hey…that’s life. Wherever there are people, there will be personalities. Wherever there are personalities, there will eventually be a Teams message that just says “👍,” and if you are a millennial, you know that somehow those two pixels can feel like an act of aggression.

Nobody said anything mean.

Nobody even used punctuation.

Just 👍.

Now my eye is twitching and I need the fruit of the Spirit.

This is particularly inconvenient because I have already had an HR case this year, and I would personally like to finish 2026 without completing the trilogy.

Still, studying the spirit of Jezebel has forced me to look at something uncomfortable: manipulation, intimidation, control, discouragement, accusation, and confusion can infiltrate any environment where people exist.

Including work.

Ephesians 6:12 reminds me that my struggle is ultimately not against flesh and blood. That matters because the minute I forget it, I start making people my enemy.

The coworker becomes the enemy.

The difficult personality becomes the enemy.

The person resisting coaching becomes the enemy.

The person who asks for feedback, receives the feedback, debates the feedback, schedules another meeting about the feedback, and somehow leaves me questioning whether I was even present for the original conversation becomes the enemy.

Meanwhile, Scripture is tapping me on the shoulder like, “Baby girl. Wrong fight.”

Daniel understood this.

Daniel 6 says there was an exceptional spirit in him. He distinguished himself so significantly that the king planned to place him over the whole kingdom. His excellence attracted favor, but it also attracted scrutiny.

They started looking for something.

Daniel 6:4 says the administrators tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel concerning his conduct in government affairs, but they could find no corruption because he was trustworthy.

That will preach all by itself.

Excellence protected Daniel in his absence.

He did not have to be in every room defending himself because his character had already been there.

Eventually, they manipulated policy itself to make Daniel’s faithfulness illegal. They could not get him through incompetence, corruption, or negligence, so they created circumstances designed to make his obedience costly.

Sometimes excellence does not remove opposition.

Sometimes excellence exposes it.

That is where I have to stop looking around the office and start looking at myself.

Because excellence may trigger mediocrity, but mediocrity can trigger something ugly in me too.

There it is.

The bloody part.

I can become so irritated by somebody else’s unwillingness to grow that I stop growing.

I can become so frustrated trying to coach someone who does not seem receptive to coaching that eventually I am no longer developing them with patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. I am technically still doing my job, but spiritually?

I have clocked out.

My mouth can remain professional while my heart becomes sarcastic.

That is actually one of my specialties.

I know how to use words.

I can say something so professionally sarcastic that technically there is nothing to report to HR.

Every word was appropriate.

Grammar? Immaculate.

Tone? Corporate-approved.

Spirit behind it?

Rotten fruit.

Ouch.

Because sarcasm wrapped in professionalism does not magically become a fruit of the Spirit.

Sometimes I can be technically right and spiritually wrong.

Sometimes I can communicate the correct information from an irritated heart and call it excellence because I never raised my voice.

Meanwhile God is looking past my vocabulary and checking the tree.

That is dangerous because my job and my assignment are not necessarily the same thing.

My job is what I do to make a living.

My assignment is what I do to make a difference.

My job gives me responsibilities, meetings, metrics, coaching sessions, emails, reports, deadlines, and a paycheck.

My assignment asks a different question:

Who am I while I do them?

Colossians 3:23–24 tells me to work wholeheartedly as though I am working for the Lord rather than human masters, because ultimately my reward comes from Him.

That completely changes the org chart.

My boss may authorize my paycheck.

God holds me accountable for how I steward the opportunity.

And suddenly I have to confront an ugly possibility:

Maybe the enemy does not need me to quit my job.

Maybe he just needs me frustrated enough to quit my assignment while I’m still doing my job.

That is much more subtle.

I can still show up.

Still answer emails.

Still coach.

Still produce.

Still hit goals.

Still meet expectations.

Still look excellent on paper.

Yet somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about the people attached to what God trusted me to do.

That is where this gets painfully introspective for me.

I cannot ask God to use me and then resent the inconvenience of being used.

I cannot pray for influence and become irritated when influence requires patience.

I cannot ask for leadership and then resent people for needing to be led.

I cannot ask God to make me effective and then decide that people are only worthy of my best when they are easy to work with.

My assignment cannot depend on somebody else’s attitude.

If God entrusted me with something for another person, He did not forget to account for their personality when He gave it to me.

God does not have to diminish someone else to develop me, and He does not need their cooperation to sustain me.

Their resistance does not empty what He put in me.

Their attitude does not cancel my assignment.

Their lack of receptiveness does not give me permission to become unreceptive to God.

That changes the prayer.

Instead of, “God, please make them easier to deal with,” maybe it becomes, “God, don’t let my frustration with them make me difficult for You to lead.”

Whew.

Because the simplicity of the enemy’s strategy is often just this:

Bring me down.

Physically.

Emotionally.

Spiritually.

Nehemiah understood that.

When his enemies repeatedly tried to lure him away from rebuilding the wall, his response in Nehemiah 6:3 was essentially: I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.

That hits differently when I realize “coming down” does not always mean abandoning the assignment completely.

Sometimes I come down emotionally.

I am still at work.

Still answering emails.

Still producing.

Still coaching.

Still appearing functional.

Except now I am bitter.

Now I am withholding.

Now I am keeping score.

Now I am fantasizing about replying “per my previous email” with the violence it deserves.

I came down.

The spirit I have been studying wins when I become so consumed with surviving an environment that I forget how God called me to behave inside of it.

That does not mean tolerating abuse, manipulation, unethical behavior, or unhealthy conditions. Boundaries are biblical too. Wisdom does not require me to volunteer as somebody’s emotional punching bag.

It means I refuse to let somebody else’s dysfunction decide my character.

Jezebel shows me exactly what happens when position becomes disconnected from assignment.

In 1 Kings 21, she had legitimate authority as queen. There were people she had the ability to influence and serve. Instead, she used that authority to manipulate people, orchestrate false accusations, intimidate opposition, and obtain something that did not belong to her.

That convicts me because leadership itself is neutral.

The question is what spirit governs how I use it.

I can have authority and use it to develop.

Or I can have authority and use it to dominate.

I can use discernment to understand someone.

Or I can use what I understand about them as ammunition.

I can correct because I want someone to grow.

Or I can correct because I am irritated and want them to know it.

Same job.

Different spirit.

That is why coaching and development can become such holy ground for me.

A receptive heart is rare even in Jesus’ parable of the sower. The seed was scattered generously, but not every soil received it the same way.

My responsibility is not to become angry at the dirt.

My responsibility is to remain faithful with the seed.

Which unfortunately means Mary J. Blige cannot be my entire conflict-resolution strategy.

Because Mary and I are in agreement:

No more drama.

I too would like a life with no more pain, no more unnecessary foolishness, no more meetings that could have been emails, no more emails requiring meetings, no more “quick questions” that are neither quick nor questions, and absolutely no more Teams thumbs-ups that somehow feel like they came with an attitude.

Mary said no more drama.

I said amen.

God apparently said, “Wonderful. Now learn how to have peace while drama exists.”

Excuse me?

I thought we were removing the drama.

Apparently we are developing the disciple.

And it is especially ironic that while I am studying all of this, the fruit of the Spirit decides to show up as the verse of the day.

Of course it did.

God said, “Since you wanted to talk about workplace culture this morning, let’s pull your performance review.”

Galatians 5:22–23.

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience.

Kindness.

Goodness.

Faithfulness.

Gentleness.

Self-control.

Sir.

I am trying to develop an employee who has explained to me seventeen different reasons why the measurable thing I am measuring should not, in fact, be measured.

Can we circle back to gentleness tomorrow?

Apparently not.

Because fruit is not proven when nobody irritates me.

Anybody can have patience when nobody requires it.

Self-control means very little when nothing is tempting me to lose control.

Gentleness becomes visible when I have enough authority, information, vocabulary, and sarcasm to absolutely cook somebody professionally…

and choose not to.

That one is for me.

Maybe the workplace is not interrupting my spiritual development.

Maybe some days it is my spiritual development.

Which brings me to 13 Going on 30.

Jenna Rink gets everything she thought she wanted. She is successful, powerful, fashionable, respected, and living the grown-up life thirteen-year-old Jenna imagined would prove she had made it.

Thirty, flirty, and thriving.

Except somewhere along the way, thriving professionally had become disconnected from who she actually wanted to be.

That is the danger.

I can become excellent at my job while becoming terrible at my assignment.

I can hit every metric and miss every person.

I can become respected professionally while becoming spiritually unrecognizable.

I can become so good at navigating workplace culture that I forget I belong to Kingdom culture.

Daniel did not.

Babylon changed his location, his job, his coworkers, his leadership, his responsibilities, and even his name.

It could not change who he belonged to.

That is excellence.

Not perfection.

Not overworking.

Not people pleasing.

Not proving my worth through productivity.

Excellence is allowing what is inside me to remain consistent regardless of what surrounds me.

Which finally explains why I’m salty.

Jesus calls His people the salt of the earth in Matthew 5:13.

Salt preserves.

Salt seasons.

Salt influences whatever environment it enters.

Salt does not become chicken because somebody sprinkled it on chicken.

It remains salt.

Okay then.

Salt of the earth, baby girl.

Maybe being salty is not always the problem.

Maybe I have just been using my salt incorrectly.

I thought being salty meant rolling my eyes after the camera turned off.

Jesus meant preservation.

I thought salty meant drafting the response I absolutely should not send.

Jesus meant influence.

I thought salty meant mentally preparing my resignation because somebody sent me 👍.

Jesus meant entering environments susceptible to decay and carrying something that slows the decay.

Salt does not necessarily stop everything around it from deteriorating instantly.

It preserves.

I may not have the authority to remove every toxic personality.

I may not be able to change every culture.

I cannot make every person receptive.

I cannot rebuke every difficult coworker into becoming pleasant before lunch.

Sometimes God does not eliminate what irritates me.

He teaches me how to remain insulated from it.

I can be in it without letting it get in me.

That is the part I am learning.

I do not want Jezebel at the job to turn Jezebel into me at the job.

I don’t want manipulation to make me manipulative.

I don’t want intimidation to make me intimidating.

I don’t want somebody else’s mediocrity to make me abandon excellence.

I don’t want resistance to make me resentful.

I don’t want drama to make me dramatic.

And I definitely don’t want somebody else’s behavior to have enough authority over me that it changes mine.

My behavior tells me what I actually believe.

So maybe the prayer is not always, “God, make this easier.”

Maybe sometimes it is:

God, make me better.

Fortify my integrity.

Focus me on my assignment.

Teach me to fight in the Spirit instead of fighting people.

Remind me that the warfare is my assignment, not my job.

Keep me on the wall when irritation tells me to come down.

Keep me excellent when mediocrity makes excellence exhausting.

Keep me gentle when coaching gets frustrating.

Keep me from confusing professional sarcasm with spiritual maturity.

Keep me faithful when the soil does not seem receptive.

Keep me salty enough to preserve the environment without becoming bitter enough to poison it.

Because maybe the victory is not that I finally get to work somewhere without difficult people.

Maybe the victory is that difficult people no longer get to decide who shows up to work wearing my name badge.

Mary wanted no more drama.

Jenna wanted to be thirty, flirty, and thriving.

At this point, I just want to be employed, sanctified, and off HR’s radar.

And apparently God wants me salty too.

Fair enough.