Compassion
Would you rather hang out with someone who acts compassionately towards you, who genuinely desires to see you grow and flourish?
Or someone who is out for themselves, who selfishly schemes and postures to get ahead?
Would you rather hang out with someone who acts compassionately towards you, who genuinely desires to see you grow and flourish?
Or someone who is out for themselves, who selfishly schemes and postures to get ahead?
Connection, as Justin’s been writing about, requires our attention and action. Basically, we need to pay attention and make decisions.
Sometimes, it’s to put down our phone and stop scrolling. Our devices can so easily manipulate us — our time, our attention, and our thinking.
Other times, we need to decide to look up and see someone as a friend, and not a foe.
Still, at other points, we need to care for ourselves. Maybe it’s taking a long walk in the summer sun. Or hanging out with a good friend. Or sitting down with a journal and a Bible to talk and listen to God.
Whatever we do, connection is priority. It underlines our uniqueness as human beings. Our longing for real life, authentic relationships, and human interaction. Really, I think, to be known for who we are, not for what we superficially project to others. Does this make sense?
Do you sense your need for connection?
Compassion, I believe, is a quality that needs to accompany connection in all our interactions.
To talk about compassion and flourishing is to look at God. He’s not selfish or self-centered. God’s not all about Himself by scheming or postering. Rather, He seeks connection with us by first pursuing us with compassion. With the idea that we will flourish. We will live fully into who we are as His child, aware of His image within us.
The Old Testament writer, Isaiah, prophesies about Jesus and describes this idea of compassionate flourishing this way:
He won’t call attention to what he does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right.
He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until he’s finished his work—to set things right on earth.
God’s Message, the God who created the cosmos, stretched out the skies, laid out the earth and all that grows from it, who breathes life into earth’s people, makes them alive with his own life: I am God. I have called you to live right and well. I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe (Isaiah 42:2-4, 5-6, The MSG).
