OM...Who?

                My kids used to laugh at my technological ignorance. So, in my own way, I’ve moved toward gadgets of the twenty-first century. My experience with computers started, for all practical and career purposes, eleven years ago when I re-entered the job market. Although I’ve learned much, one thing I quickly memorized was the number for our talented, patient IT department. They are my friends!

            Our cell phone? It’s what I call an “old people’s cell phone.” It’s just a phone for me, not for the world to call me but for me to call the world. Besides, few call my land line. Who in the world would call a spiffy, upgraded bells and whistles cell, if I had one?

           So, as you can tell, I’m not texting on a phone. That’s left me at a disadvantage. I miss out on the acronym language. I’m not good at acronyms in general. My government class in high school challenged me greatly. (HUD, NPS, NASA—after a while I made up my own names.) I know a few text short cuts: ty, yw, and k. I realize it’s an unimpressive list.

            I’m confused. I really am. What is OMG? Here is my confusion: Is it: “Oh, my G…”? Or is it: “Oh, my gosh”? Or is it possibly either, depending on the person you’re texting?

            When I was young, gosh was not acceptable in our home. The reason? According to Mom and the dictionary, gosh is a euphemism for God. Really? Everyone said gosh or gee (gosh’s cousin). I wasn’t talking bad to say those words. Or was I?

            At least once, and perhaps more than that, my mother rubbed a bar of soap on my tongue because the words coming out of my mouth were unworthy of me, and one of them may or may not have been gosh. My mind is fuzzy on my choice of words, but my memories of the soap are not. The soap burned and stung, and the flavor lingered on and on. The bar, meant to purify my words, didn’t clean out my heart. That’s where the words came from. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (Luke 6:45, NIV).           

           What confuses and troubles me about OMG is that I’m not only seeing the acronym on social media communications, I’m hearing “Oh, my G…” from the lips of Christians. When I hear it, I want to halt the conversation immediately and say, “We weren’t talking about God. Why are you invoking his holy name?” A friend would actually say to people who spoke like that: “Where, where is He?”

            God is brought into conversation like punctuation. Why is that? Why don’t we say something like: “Oh, my morning bowl of oatmeal”? What about: “Oh, my dishwasher—diamond ring, briefcase, video, notebook”? Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Why do we invoke God’s name in conversation without thought? Why is that elevated, sophisticated conversation?

            I wonder if it’s part of Satan’s plan to debase the holiness of God’s name by making it common and profaned. People who don’t believe in God say OMG and so do his people. Perhaps it’s time for a vocabulary check-up. OM…Who? Why OM…Anything?

           Perhaps we all need the soap of the Holy Spirit to purify our hearts so our words honor the holy name of God.