It’s Up to You to Determine What Those Actions Will Be
This past Sunday was Mother’s Day. Motherhood involves both compassion and action.
One mother shared her recipe for iced coffee.
- Have kids
- Make coffee
- Forget you made the coffee
- Warm the coffee in the microwave
- Forget you warmed the coffee
- Drink it cold
This humorous story is a good example of how busy life can get. We need to remember to enjoy the coffee…iced or hot.
A lady slipped on the ice as she walked across a parking lot. A driver stopped and asked if she was hurt. The lady responded that she was alright. The driver then asked, “Can I have your parking space?
Compassion is something that requires more than just saying, it takes doing.
Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” It is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.
Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism, though the concepts are related. While empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help.
In Acts 9:36-43 we find out about Tabitha, she was compassionate. Many widows of the time struggled. Tabitha helped them by making clothes for them. She showed her compassion by doing.
In the same way when Tabitha died the widows sent for Peter. Peter went to Tabitha and told her to get up…and she did. Peter was also a doer.
Dr. Martha Myers is a good example of compassion with action.
Called as a little girl to missions, she served in Yemen for 25 years as a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology. As such, she delivered hundreds of babies, but she was even better known for her love for the Yemeni people, her late-night village visits, her unending pursuit to love and care for the people. This endeared her to many, but also made her a target of Al-Qaeda extremists.
One woman went home and told her husband that she had never been treated with such love and compassion. This man was so angered that he burst into the Jibla hospital and gunned down Martha and two colleagues in hopes of keeping Christianity out of his country. Instead, her grave stands today as a testimony to the love of Christ for the Yemeni people.
Former IMB President Jerry Rankin said, “Martha’s colleagues said the gunmen did not take her life.
She lost her life to Jesus Christ years ago when she trusted Him. Martha was not living for herself, but to serve others.”
Too much of the time we’re scared so we don’t do. We tell ourselves; I don’t have the skills for that. Someone else will do it. We’re too busy, we don’t have time. And the excuses go on.
This doesn’t mean that we all have to be a missionary doctor in Yemen. It means we need to minister with our God given talent and gifts to those around us wherever we are.
Compassion is often dismissed as a touchy-feely or irrational emotion. Not so…
It takes courage to care.
The world will be better if we lose our lives to Christ and show compassion through action.
