That's not entirely true. It depends on the type of act of compassion that is needed. I am pretty good with my money, what little there is. I can give to the hungry and the needy. I give to others who are giving of themselves. But I really have a hard time giving of time without doing so begrudgingly. I am not a social person anymore, and I truly have become quite the homebody. It's hard for me to sacrifice my time with Leah, even to be of service, even when I remember that it's not my time. It's His. Everyone has things that are harder to put on the altar than others.
The point is that I am not naturally a compassionate person. That may not have been true during childhood, but the selfishness of addiction and the environment of prison both worked to weaken compassion in me. At the same time, I know that you can't walk in love without walking in compassion. Compassion means to have sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. According to the dictionary it's a noun, but according to Christ it's a verb. I'll trust Jesus for truth over Webster any day. The scripture never talks about Jesus having compassion without accompanying action, He was moved with compassion and full of compassion, and it always lead to acting to help the one suffering and in need.
Is the sympathy and concern real if it doesn't do something within us and stir us to action? This is a case where I need grace, and God has come through big time. One thing that He has done is given me the perfect helpmate. Leah is one of the most compassionate people I know. She is moved with compassion, will weep over the pain and needs of others, even others she doesn't know. She doesn't have to try to figure out how to care about this person or that person. She only needs to know what God wants her to do about it. Pray. Give. Work. Combo? What would you have me do for them Lord, what can I do for them Lord?
It's awesome and beautiful to me, and inspires me and reminds me of the call to compassion. It was Leah's recent project on compassion that really put me in that place of realizing that I need to go further, do more, care more. Compassion is one of her gifts, and she understands that it is indeed the heart of Christ. If we are going to claim to follow Him and live unselfishly, than compassion is a major component of the love we are called to live. Yesterday she and I discussed it more, that Christians need to begin to move in true compassion for the world, the broken and those in need as Christ did. Her heart is filled with the desire and need to spread the call to compassion. Then, last night a song I heard on a secular show hit me over the head with it again. We are called to love one another, not to fight each other. Acting on compassion is an essential act of love.
So this morning as I prayed about what to write, this idea of acting on compassion, that we are called to do what Jesus did on an even larger scale and what Jesus did was to love others more than self and to be full of and moved to act on compassion. But I hesitated. Leah should be writing this. She's the one full of compassion. I have to work for it. Something in my spirit said that she will write on it, teach on it, share on it and show it and the need for it to others. But this morning I have something she doesn't have. She is a naturally born swimmer in the sea of compassion and none of the hardship she has endured has hindered that. But some of us aren't that way. We either aren't born with it, or the world and life and pain and selfishness have beat it down and buried it so deep it might as well be dead, if it's not. We don't know how to stir up the spirit of compassion.
So for folks like me who would in all honesty much rather stay home with their spouse than go hang out with and talk to someone who's hurting, who would rather take his wife out to eat than give to feed someone else, who would rather watch college football than go volunteer on a Saturday? Well, we need to act on compassion even more! We don't get a pass on what is one of the most dominate aspects of who Christ was just because it isn't easy or come naturally! That's what grace is for. It's not in my nature or within my power to stay sober any more than it is to walk in compassion, but I do that because of who He is, not because of who I am.
We are called to love like Jesus, not like us. And the truth is, whether you are a compassionate person naturally or not, that's not who you are. Leah may be full of compassion in my eyes, but compared to Christ, she falls way short. We all do. Mother Theresa fell short compared to Christ. Loving like Jesus is just not who any of us are naturally, on our own. We need Him to love through us, and we need grace to walk in His love and compassion for others. So whether you need a lot of grace for this or just a little, His grace is sufficient and available. But it takes something from us as well.
I have a friend who started in recovery around the same time that I did. She's a runner. When I say she's a runner, I mean a serious runner, as in has successfully run marathons. But that is not who she always was. And it didn't happen overnight. She began running in the early days of recovering to help clear her head and stop the "crazies." That didn't mean it didn't tire her out. It doesn't mean that she didn't have to work at it, or that it was easy, or even that she always wanted to and felt like running. But along with the exhaustion and aches and sacrifice of time, energy, diet and other things, it brought benefits. She began to love the challenge and the act of following through on discipline and commitment that made her train and showing up. Discipline and commitment are not something high up on the list of traits used to describe addicts before recovery.
To build the compassionate heart muscle we need grace (or it's impossible), but we also must train and work at it. We don't wait until it feels good to do it. We don't only do it when it's easy and convenient and we're in the mood. We must surrender to the call of grace to use the power of that grace on behalf of others. We obey the call to compassion. Every chance. Every day. By grace.
It may suck at first. It may (read as will) hurt and make us ache. That's the breaking down of the muscles of selfishness. There is something God has put on my heart to help someone with, and it's going to cost me some time, including four our five hours Saturday. My first thought was that's a long time to be away from Leah when she's not at work, and my second thought was that I was going to miss the football game. See? Selfishness and self-centeredness is still an issue with me. Preaching doesn't make me perfect. I can't deny self without grace any more now than before. I just have more desire to do so and am quicker to surrender to the power of grace now than I used to be. I will be there Saturday, and I'm actually looking forward to it...a little.
We obey, by grace. We do what compassion and love would have us do, regardless of what our feelings say, just like my friend trains in rain and when she doesn't feel like running the same as when the weather is wonderful and she's eager to stretch her legs. We pretend we're in a Nike commercial and Just Do It, but I mean we surrender to grace and allow the compassion of Christ to move through us. We can't manufacture compassion anymore than we can walk free of self. We have pray and ask God to give us His heart for others, to give us wisdom about what to do when we receive it and the willingness and strength to move in the compassion of Christ.
But here's the good news. As we walk with Jesus and obey the call by grace we become more like Him. Running a mile stops hurting. We begin to look forward to those small acts of compassion. We find ourselves becoming compassionate people and enjoying it. We begin to seek out ways to push ourselves in this area. We stop dragging our heals at running a mile and start training for marathons. Yes, it still costs. In fact, it costs more. But we get more out of it. It becomes even more who we are and people who see us won't even realize that it's not who we are. We've become runners because of grace. They see the heart and compassion of Christ in our lives, and we love that. We love the changes and the challenges and the act of compassion. But it doesn't happen overnight. It won't happen without sacrifice of self and obeying even when it isn't easy or fun. It's impossible without grace. And no matter how compassionate we become there will be a call to go further. When the marathons become routine, the Ironman Triathlon presents itself, and we may even have to learn to swim before we can begin training. But by grace we can develop a heart muscle of compassion. And if we want the love of God to be displayed to those who need it, we must work on our compassion. People will not see the love of Christ unless His compassion is evident in our actions more than our creed and our words.
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