Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [Matthew 9:35-36 (NLT)]
My summer beach novel began with a man having a heart attack on a commuter train. For the next several pages, I was privy to the thoughts of his fellow passengers. They were annoyed and frustrated by the train’s unscheduled stop and saw the man’s collapse as a tremendous inconvenience. As they disembarked to find another way into the city, their thoughts were not of the dying man and his wife but of themselves and how their lives had been disrupted.
My husband has twice been on trains delayed because of a jumper’s suicide on the tracks. His fellow passengers were no different than the fictional ones. Their thoughts were about themselves and how the delay ruined their day. They seemed to forget that the cause of that delay ruined a whole lot more than a day for someone’s family and friends.
A friend who taught typing in the local college several years ago mentioned having had a student with only one arm. When she first saw him, her initial thought was of the difficulty his handicap posed for her as a teacher rather than empathy for the challenges he would face conquering a keyboard. Like the train passengers and my teacher friend, we usually see life through the eyes of self-concern. Forgetting that it really isn’t about us and we’re not the center of the world, our self-interest undermines our compassion.
The disciples were no different. Disturbed and annoyed, they wanted to send away the woman who kept begging Jesus to heal her daughter, the crowd of hungry people they had no money to feed, and the parents who brought their small children to Jesus. Seeing a woman desperate to free her daughter from torment, hungry people requiring food, and children needing His touch and blessing, Jesus wasn’t bothered and never sent people away without meeting their needs. Surely all those people who followed Him and pled for healing inconvenienced and delayed our Lord. Rather than complain, Jesus showed mercy, sympathy, patience and kindness. Christ and compassion go hand in hand but compassion doesn’t always come easily. It’s only human to have our first response be, “What does this mean to me?” or “How will I be affected?” It may be human but it’s not Christ-like.
“It must be hard for you,” said a man to my friend. “Yes,” she admitted, “but it’s much harder for my mother who has Parkinson’s!” My friend was inconvenienced by caregiving but she understood that it was no picnic for her mother either. On the days she resented the weight placed on her shoulders, she remembered it was even worse for the woman whose weight she was carrying. When she considered life from her mother’s position, any feeling of being inconvenienced was replaced with love and compassion. Isn’t that what doing unto others really means? To truly do unto others we need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes instead of complaining about a little scuff on ours!
Father, when confronted with other people’s misfortune and difficulties, forgive us when we look to ourselves first. Instead of seeing how we’ve been inconvenienced, help us see ways we can help. Replace our annoyance with patience, our callousness with kindness and our self-concern with compassion.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” [Martin Luther King, Jr.]
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. [Colossians 3:12 (NLT)]
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After their recent visit to the oncologist, a friend asked me to pray for her father. His cancer is terminal and she asked me to pray that he will come to know God. He’s been sitting on the fence for quite some time and his time for fence sitting is rapidly running out. As I added him to my prayer list, I wondered, “Can we pray someone to God?”
In a “Family Circus” cartoon, written by Bil and Jeff Keane, Dolly wakes up and says, “I hope today is one of those days I never wanna forget.” Amen to that, girl! Isn’t that what we all hope for every day? What will it take for Dolly to have one of those days? What will it take for us to have a day we never want to forget?
My husband and I joke that our marriage survived because we agreed that whoever filed for divorce had to take sole custody of the children! Knowing that it took two of us to deal with the three of them, we stayed married. Now that the children are grown, we remain together because whoever files must relinquish all grandparenting rights. Since neither one of us is willing to forfeit time with the delightful grands, we continue to remain together. All joking aside, we’ll soon be commemorating a half century of marriage.
Immediately after finishing yesterday’s devotion about conflict and prayer, I received a call from a friend whose 11-year old granddaughter, Anna, has osteosarcoma (bone cancer). Having undergone chemotherapy for the past two months, she is scheduled for surgery this week. In the best case scenario, her knee and part of her femur will be removed and replaced by a metal prostheses; the worst case scenario involves complete amputation of the leg. In either case, more chemo and at least six to twelve months of physical therapy will follow.
In speaking about prayer recently, our pastor referred to the 2009 church-wide assembly of our denomination. Knowing that the agenda included some divisive topics, the Presiding Bishop asked the delegates to spend the 50 days leading up to the convention devoted to both prayer and the study of Scripture. Once the Assembly convened, there was heated discussion among the delegates about the writing of a statement on human sexuality. The debate about this controversial subject was unique because the Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson, halted the proceedings every twenty minutes to lead the assembly in prayer. Delegates on opposing sides, who had been vehemently arguing minutes earlier, often would lay hands on one another and pray for each other during these breaks. Praying for unity in spite of their disagreements, the delegates showed respect and love for one another. Although the final statement passed by only one vote and there is still disagreement within the church about it, without those pauses for prayer, that debate could have caused far more damage to the church than did the tornado that accompanied the assembly.
Devotions of the Heart 