Compassion



            Have you ever considered the idea to take every thought captive? It is a feat I cannot wrap my head around; the best I can do is to keep the thought from becoming words spoken out loud. My family has a flair for sarcasm, my father was proud of us when we had a quick come back. This has naturally led to the habit of immediate sarcastic thoughts when I encounter things that don’t fit into my paradigm of life. Is it possible to stop a thought before it happens?
            I’m pretty sure I am not alone thinking unkind thoughts about the person going too slow when I’m in a hurry or calling the speed demon a maniac when I have all the time in the world. I get rather irritated with someone who commits sins I myself am guilty of. I rationalize that I have a reason for going too fast yet I do not extend that same grace to others. (I am working on it) It is this very idea that Jesus addresses in Matthew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
            I believe the answer to the problem is compassion. Jesus demonstrated compassion for everyone. I do wonder what went through his mind when dealing with the Pharisees and Sadducees, but he did control his words. He was never unkind; he spoke with respect for each human. He viewed others with compassionate eyes. Compassion is to look at the world through the eyes of another rather than how their actions affect me. Compassion is to remember; “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” God knows who we are, where we are and why we are. We are all sinners and we all have access to forgiveness. Because of this we also should be ready to forgive. 1 John 4:10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
            Perhaps, if more us continually demonstrate compassion for others, we can turn the direction our world has taken around. That is my prayer.
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  1. harleySeptember 4, 2015 at 12:01 PM

    Unless it's alive and overwhelmingly powerful or small and very nimble It is easy to take something visible into captivity. We just reach out and grab it. Books like the Bible and the Dictionary are words in captivity. They are contained and through repeated references we can transfer a bit the printed words to the memory banks of our brain. Before any book was written the intangible thoughts existed in the author's mind. The most pressing "thought of uncertainty" throughout human history has always been: "Can I die and live again?" i.e. Can I through the experience of death cross from one form of "human life" to another form of "divine life?" Job pondered this question at Job 14:14. Solomon pondered the matter and made a conclusion based entirely on sight at Ecclesiastes 9:4,5 where he basically says that a live mammal is better off than a dead mammal. Of course Christians of today use the word "better" to describe "a better place . . . he/she's in a better place." The Sadducees had a long running debate with the Pharisees believing in a resurrection, and angelic beings while the Sadducees took the counter opinion. If it were not for the "light of the world" (John 8:12), we would still be muddled in a malaise of conflicting opinions. They put the man that uttered those words to death at Calvary on Nisan 14, 33CE and then the light really became bright. So bright in fact that a man from Tarsus named Saul on a mission to extinguish Christianity in its infancy was blinded by the light and rendered helpless. But out of that weakness grew the strongest advocate for the Christian hope of "death in Christ." So with the life and death experience of Jesus Christ, it was much easier than it had ever been to reign in loose thoughts and fanciful opinions to the contrary. And that is what Paul was trying to do to those who would give him a listening ear.

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