Compassion
Offering compassion is a gift, more for the giver than the receiver in many ways. Compassion is not something that has to be earned and more often than not, it is given to those who are troubled, on the fringe of society, or maybe just those folks that are not kind to us.I was looking up images of compassion on google today and was a bit surprised that a huge percentage of the photos were of Buddhist mindset, well actually this didn't surprise me in of itself since compassion is a big element of Buddhist practice, but what did surprise me was the small number of photos depicting Christian compassion. There was of course the drawing of Mother Teressa with the baby in her arms and a few photos of starving children in third world countries eating bowls of white stuff, and we all know its not hard to show compassion to hungry children, its not so easy to show compassion to the adults that seem to have made poor choices in life. After 9 pages of looking, there were no photos of posters with Christian teachings on compassion, or calls to action to love the unlovable. I know that Christian compassion exists, that's not the issue here, what is the issue is that Christians need to spread more compassion and talk more about having it. We need to reach out to those that no one else seems to care about right in our own neighborhood, our own backyard so to speak. People need to ask pastors to teach on how to have so much love in our hearts that reaching out to others is as natural as the breath we take. That our love is so deep for mankind that we pass no judgement on another, but see them as the dearly loved child of God that they are, sure maybe they are dirty or not so socially acceptable in some ways or maybe they are not perfect....oh but wait, neither are we perfect. Someone mentioned to me recently that a family that is full of chaos and dysfunction was in their thinking better than most because they dressed modestly....well I can tell you this...it says right in the Bible that God looks on the inside and not the outside. "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16: 7 See people the way God sees us. Our hearts, not the clothes we wear or don't wear, or the amount of dirt on our hands or where we live or don't live.
I would rather see a compassionate woman in shorts any day, than see a woman that is prideful, self centered and with no compassion in her heart for those in need but that dresses in some certain uniform of modesty. Let your extra money be used as Jesus would use it. Imagine how many images would be on google for compassion if we all did that !
Lets see more compassion in action. Lets hear more about how to look beyond our own selfish desires and have the mind of Jesus when it comes to being compassionate. Lets not pass by those even in our families who need a kind word or a kind deed done in secret. Forget the "stuff" you think you want and spend what you would have spent on stuff and make the lives of others better. Compassion has us reach deep down in ourselves and see that it is far better to put food on the table of a hungry person than to buy one more pair of shoes you don't need or buy that bigger car or cell phone. Pay for the medication for that person walking away from the pharmacy counter, not able to afford their medicine rather than to go out to eat in some over priced restaurant. Compassion comes when we love others as Jesus loves us.
In regard to the photo, yes, we all know not to give money to those on the street, what they need is food and compassion
