Here we are friends, walking the final few steps of our Relentless journey together- looking for the presence of God in the midst of our suffering, and what a road it has been! But we have just one more thing to wrestle with…

How do we, as a chosen people, a holy priesthood, a royal nation, which has been called out of darkness and into marvelous light (1 Peter 2:4-5, 9), walk this out? How do we not keep such joy and healing and the experience of God’s presence amidst our pain to ourselves?

“When we establish our altar of God’s presence in our life, this memorial marking the reality of God’s presence with us, we then become living stones that testify to the God who has seen us through our Jordan rivers to this moment and will see us the rest of the way home.”

The answer? Compassion. Henri Nouwen says this:

“…The word compassion… means to suffer with. Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter in to places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those who are in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. True compassion is full immersion- to recognize pain and to refuse to walk past it, to sit down, get uncomfortable with another’s writhing and do what we can to bear it with them. It sounds like covenant- like the pilar of cloud and fire, the incarnation, the cross. Doing this, doing what Jesus did by entering in will wreck us, and it will save us.”

But what does compassion look like? How do we show compassion to both ourselves and to others? There are three things I’ve found to be true…

3 Requirements of Compassion:

1. Push into our own pain. We cannot ignore or numb what has wounded us. We must take it to Jesus.
2. Trust and then experience God’s presence within our pain. If we refuse to deal with it, we forfeit experiencing the sweetness of his presence in it.
3. Enter into the pain of others. We cannot help anybody with their pain until we, with Jesus, have dealt with our own. We then have the capacity to minister to others.

This is how we, as followers of Jesus, want to be known by the world around us. Unfortunately, compassion is not often our first response. Philip Yancey & Dr. Paul Brand say this:

“Tragically, those who are struggling with divorce, alcoholism, gender or sexual identity, introversion, rebelliousness, unemployment, or marginalization often report that the church is the last group to show them compassion. Like a person who takes Aspirin at the first sign of a headache, we want to silence them without addressing the underlying causes. Someone once asked John Wesley’s mother, ‘Which of your eleven children do you love the most?’ She gave a wise answer to match the folly of the question. ‘I love the one who’s sick until she’s well, and the one who’s away until he comes home.’ That, I believe, is God’s attitude towards our suffering planet. Jesus always stood on the side of the suffering. He came for the sick and not the well. The sinners and not the righteous.”

It is when we, in humility, remind ourselves that we are among the sick whom Jesus came, was crucified, resurrected, and now intercedes for that we can meet the brokenness of others with compassion and love.

My friends I am honored to be counted among the sick and the sinners that Jesus has come for. I am not well or righteous, not even on my best days. I am merely a sick woman that Jesus chose to come alongside and to heal. That’s it; no more, no less, and it’s enough.

THANK YOU for journeying with me these past fifteen episodes.

Relentless Podcast, Episode 6: “Lost in the wilderness without a canteen…”

This Undone Life Together with Michele CushattBy Michele CushattMay 26, 2020