Compassion Through Choice

 

Aptly perhaps, our church has been studying the book of Job in recent weeks, and like Job there are some in the fellowship suffering greatly. Job of course lost everything in Satan’s attempt to have him deny his faithfulness to God. Indeed the devil works equally hard in the lives of each one of us for the same purpose, for without doubt there are many who either don’t come to faith or turn from Christ because they can’t understand why God permits suffering.

 

As it happens one of the suffering families in our church community lost their young wife and mother less than 2 weeks ago. She had bravely battled cancer for several years before going to the Lord, but in that time despite severe trial neither she or her family turned from faith. One could argue she had good cause to give up believing in a seemingly uncompassionate God for she had also lost a brother in a tragic accident some years ago and knew well the effects this had on his young family. You’ll be heartened to know that her sister-in-law remained faithful as well in the face of her own grief and the Lord has blessed her in ways she could not have imagined.

 

It is impossible to detect values other than love and compassion among the affected families or any who know them, but the pain of loss is obvious and expected. So is there a lesson to be learned from suffering? The answer has to be a resounding ‘yes’ for in such trials we find the outcome of love – compassion. Not its antitheses hate, which is devoid of such feeling, but an overwhelming outpouring of understood sorrow at circumstances beyond our control. Yet many in the world still lack compassion by failing to love their fellow man as they should.

 

We are each on a journey between birth and death. It could be viewed as a transition from physical to spiritual fulfilment and one of choice which sets us apart. Stephen Covey said ‘We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.’ This is a God given blessing that allows us to make decisions about our own living but in doing so we are not exempt the trials of life, indeed, for many they increase. However our God understands our pain. Remember He gave His Son on the cross that we might be saved, because He loves us. Through choice Christians grow in love of their fellow man and become more like the compassionate Christ, in anguish for one another.

Compassion,  the expression of agape love – selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love – is the reason all Christians can look forward to the fulfilled promise of the Gospel, as Jesus tells us in John 6:40 “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” Yes! We Christians are subject to the storms of life just like everyone else but we have the hedge of God’s love around our soul and the assurance that this physical life is just the beginning. God be praised!                 gjmcg15052013