Compassion is when your heart hurts for someone in a personal, and identifying way and all you want to do is fix and relieve their suffering. But it’s also more than that.
I used to see people with problems, and want to fix it, but back then, I didn’t have the answer. I thought I could do something to make it better. But when I came to know Jesus personally, I realized that he was the answer and the only answer that truly satisfies, and gives hope.?
Now I am out here in the world, seeing the least of these, seeing how people really live, and having the veil of first-world ignorance and naivety lifted from my eyes. My compassion for them grows everyday. It is a slap in the face, really. How could I ever go back to such a comfortable, safe, and ignorant life after wittnessing all that I have seen?
Nope, I can never go back to my old life, the way I used to live, so comfortable with complacency. I know this is what I am supposed to be doing, telling people everywhere about Jesus, and serving in whatever way I can to further the kingdom. I know this is my purpose, and knowing that is so fulfilling…the fact that I am finally living out what I was meant for.
So you see, the kind if compassion we are given as Christians is for the lost, and every day, all over the world and even all around you back home, people are perishing. They are lost therefore hopeless. We as believers have the answer, and you have to TELL them…you can’t just “live a good life” and hope they figure it out. The power of life and death are in the tongue, and you, yes even YOU have the power to speak life to someone by sharing the gospel with them, so they may come to know Jesus, and have hope, joy, peace, and life abundantly.
My heart is so full here (when I wrote this I was in India). My cup runneth over. God has filled my heart and given me this small piece of himself that longs to live and seek out the lost, sick, and hopeless, and share with them the hope they can have in Christ.
NOW let me share with you the story that these feelings arose from. One evening after kids club, we were wrapping up and then our host Morong comes in and says the neighbors have asked if we will come and pray for them. This is a family of four, the father has had a stroke and cannot speak properly anymore, and the daughter, has a physical disability with her leg that keeps her from walking properly so she has to crawl around. Her and her sister are in their early teens.
We first prayed for the father, and after a while we asked him to try and say a word. He began to speak “mother”. He tried over and over and it got a little better each time. The wife started crying and then we all did. It was all kind of confusing due to language barriers but something definitely happened there, and the spirit was strong with us. We told them about the God we serve and how powerful he is, and how the ultimate gift is the salvation that he gives through Jesus. Then we prayed for the daughter. When nothing happened, I wanted to reassure her, it doesn’t mean that she is forgotten. So I told her that it didn’t matter if God healed her now or later, but that when we put our faith in Jesus, we can have hope of eternal life, and he promises to give us new, perfect bodies. Something about her touched my heart, I felt like I could understand her in some small way. I understand what its like to be different, to look different at times when I have cataplexy episodes, and people stare or not understand. I knew what it was like to ask God to just fix it. But his ways are higher than ours, and what he does is often a mystery, we just have to trust him because he does know best. My heart still hurt for her though, and her family, and what all they must have been through.
I will conclude by saying this: before the race it is easy to think, how cool would it be to experience a miracle?! But then you get to a village, you see people, and you know its about so much more than just a “cool experience”. No, what its really about is their salvation, something far bigger than you and me. I am just in awe of God’s power and reverence.
The next time you look at someone today, look beyond the fleshly things, and ask, are they walking with the Lord? If they are, encourage them, and if they are not, have some compassion, and speak some life to them in sharing the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, the best gift you can ever give.
