Having compassion can radically change your life. Are you a compassionate person? One definition of compassion is the ability to understand the emotional state of another person or oneself.
Compassion has the added element of having a desire to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another.
I believe that having compassion for someone involves more than putting yourself in their place and genuinely wanting to understand or even help them. It involves beginning to have a totally different perspective when it comes to how you perceive others. For example, instead of assuming that the reason someone has done something that hurts you is because they are selfish or inconsiderate, assume instead that they had a good reason for doing it.
This can be difficult to buy into at first. But when you think about it, don't you usually have a good reason when you do something, even if what you did may seem inconsiderate to someone else?
Let's say you are very worried about your child's health. You took him to the doctor and he decided to take tests in order to rule out a serious disease. Later that day you are walking down the street, preoccupied with your son and an acquaintance passes you and says hello. You say hello in return but because you are so deep in thought you don't stop to chat. Later on you hear the acquaintance felt insulted because you "snubbed" him.
Even though it was not your intention to snub this person, and you had a very good reason for your behavior-the acquaintance assumed the worst. Unfortunately, this is what most of us do. We assume the worst.
Learning to have more compassion involves making the radical shift to assume the best in others. If the acquaintance had assumed the best, he would have concluded that it wasn't personal-that you must have been preoccupied-and he would have been right.
To be honest, it frustrates me that many evangelical groups don't seem to have much compassion for the down and out in our society. I used to struggle with having compassion for others but that has started to change over the last few years, due to my own personal struggles. I now believe that at every level of society, the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. From my own limited experience I have found that the greatest degree of inner peace comes from the development of love and compassion.
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Mark 6:34
Whom do you need to show compassion on today?
I believe that having compassion for someone involves more than putting yourself in their place and genuinely wanting to understand or even help them. It involves beginning to have a totally different perspective when it comes to how you perceive others. For example, instead of assuming that the reason someone has done something that hurts you is because they are selfish or inconsiderate, assume instead that they had a good reason for doing it.
This can be difficult to buy into at first. But when you think about it, don't you usually have a good reason when you do something, even if what you did may seem inconsiderate to someone else?
Let's say you are very worried about your child's health. You took him to the doctor and he decided to take tests in order to rule out a serious disease. Later that day you are walking down the street, preoccupied with your son and an acquaintance passes you and says hello. You say hello in return but because you are so deep in thought you don't stop to chat. Later on you hear the acquaintance felt insulted because you "snubbed" him.
Even though it was not your intention to snub this person, and you had a very good reason for your behavior-the acquaintance assumed the worst. Unfortunately, this is what most of us do. We assume the worst.
Learning to have more compassion involves making the radical shift to assume the best in others. If the acquaintance had assumed the best, he would have concluded that it wasn't personal-that you must have been preoccupied-and he would have been right.
To be honest, it frustrates me that many evangelical groups don't seem to have much compassion for the down and out in our society. I used to struggle with having compassion for others but that has started to change over the last few years, due to my own personal struggles. I now believe that at every level of society, the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. From my own limited experience I have found that the greatest degree of inner peace comes from the development of love and compassion.
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Mark 6:34
Whom do you need to show compassion on today?
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