2020 was a hard year for everyone. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who came out of 2020 unscathed. But what truly discouraged me wasn’t the lockdown or working from home.
It wasn’t the political conflicts or the social unrest.
The thing that hurt my heart the most was seeing the way Christians reacted towards people, especially on social media.
My issue wasn’t that people had opinions. I adamantly support people forming their own opinions and beliefs, especially when they have the diligence to do research and truly search for answers. What really concerned me was the lack of compassion we seemed to have for others.
Merriam Webster defines compassion as “a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Compassion isn’t just feeling bad for someone or wishing they didn’t have to struggle; it’s also a desire to make things better, to actively seek out ways to support the hardships of others.
I have worked with school-aged children for a third of my life, and for the past few years, my focus has been on supporting students who have a hard time managing their behavior. These kids are amazing! And their stories would break your heart. I have learned so much from working with them, but there are two specific things that I have realized:
Behavior communicates.
Hurt people hurt people.
How someone behaves communicates something. When I watch the news, especially any clips regarding politics or social injustice, what I see is people communicating that they are hurt and angry. When I see people sharing their views on social media, what I see is people longing to be heard. And when I see people attacking others, what I see is a lack of compassion for anyone who thinks differently or holds a different opinion.
Disclaimer: I’m all for open debate and argument; the way we go about it, the amount of compassion we have (or don’t have) is the issue.
I think part of the reason we lack compassion is because of how much access we have to knowledge. The Apostle Paul warns us about the danger of knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8. In this passage, Paul is writing a letter to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth, answering some questions they have about living as believers in the culture around them. One of the issues they were struggling with was whether or not they should eat meat that was sacrificed and offered to idols. During that time, part of the meat was given to the priest that oversaw the sacrifice; if he didn’t want it, he could sell it in the marketplace, and it was often cheaper than other meat options (even the ancient people loved a good deal!).
Paul starts out his answer to the Corinthians by saying, “We know that ‘we all have knowledge.’ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (verse 1). In the next couple of paragraphs, Paul goes on to basically say that eating the meat wasn’t a problem because the Christians knew idols aren’t real--the sacrifices didn’t really mean anything. However, he also makes the point that not every believer has this understanding yet, and that needed to be taken into consideration. Newer Christians, especially those who grew up sacrificing to idols might be bothered by their conscience in regards to the sacrificed meat. Not only did the priest get a third of the meat after the sacrifice, but the family participating got a third of it too (the rest went to honor the god they were worshipping). Here they were trying to turn away from the life they once had to pursue the one true God, and yet, they kept getting put in their old situation by fellow believers offering them sacrificed meat.
So what does eating meat have to do with compassion and our access to knowledge?
The meat wasn’t the issue. I honestly don’t think Paul really cared about the Corinthians’ meal planning habits. The issue was how they were treating one another and the lack of concern they had for people who thought differently. Instead of seeking to alleviate the struggles of their fellow believers, those who thought they “knew better” were letting their knowledge and understanding inflate their self-importance. There wasn’t any compassion towards another person, just “Well, I know this is right, so I don’t see why you have a problem with it.”
In today’s culture, we have immediate access to any information we seek. It’s incredibly easy to find evidence that will support any opinion you have. That’s an incredible privilege! I work in education, so I will always advocate for learning and using the tools available. But privilege also comes with responsibility. The issue isn’t having knowledge, it’s about how we use it and how it affects us. The more we know, the more temptation we face to think we know better than someone else, to get a little too “puffed up” for our own good. Are we using our knowledge to tear down others or to actively seek ways to alleviate their struggles?
Showing Compassion
It Starts With Yourself
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from therapy, it’s that if you aren’t able to treat yourself with compassion, you won’t be able to treat others with compassion in an effective way. Oh, sure, you can fake it a bit, but eventually what’s inside will come out. If you want your outward actions to be compassionate, your heart has to be compassionate, and that starts with being compassionate to yourself.
Know who you are in Christ. Know what God thinks of you. Know and believe the value you have because of what God has done for you.
View People with the Right Lens
How you view people will greatly affect how you interact with them. How do you see those around you? Do you see them as knowing less than you? Or do you see them as image-bearers of God? It doesn’t make a difference if they have the same views as you or the same beliefs--if we hold to what the Bible says, each person was created in God’s image and has His breath in their lungs. Do you see them that way?
Viewing another person as someone who is desperately loved, valued, and cherished by God will help you have the desire to love them, too.
Serve without Expectation
As we discovered earlier, compassion isn’t just a feeling. It’s an action. And it’s how we’re called to live. Throughout the New Testament, God calls us to act with compassion. In Colossians, we’re told to put on compassion. In Galatians, we’re called to bear one another’s burdens. God expects us to help others carry their struggles. If we truly want to follow Christ’s example, showing compassion isn’t something we get to opt-out of. In fact, 1 John tells us that if we know someone is in need but we withhold compassion, how can we claim to know God’s love?
Look for ways to serve other people. What can you do to make someone’s day easier? What can you do to help alleviate some of their stress? Jesus Himself modeled this when He decided to feed a crowd of followers so He could continue ministering to and teaching them (Matthew 9:35-36). He had compassion on them because He saw they were distressed, so He served them in a very human way--by giving them free food! Showing compassion doesn’t have to be a grand, extravagant event; it just has to come from a heart that sincerely cares.
The way we love other people, the way we show compassion, is the way people will know Who we represent. There are a lot of things I’m still figuring out about life, about my faith, about how to live in this crazy world, but this is what I know without a shadow of a doubt to be true: God has radical compassion and love for human beings, not just as a group, but as individual people, and we are called to be a reflection of that.