Compassion...Hurts

Galatians 6:2 says,"Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ."   When I've read this verse before, I've always took it to mean that we are to help each other out in times of trouble.  And I still believe that's true.  We can't live this life alone!! It is too difficult!!

But if you look at the verse right before it, it says, "Brothers, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted."

So when you look at those two verses together, it basically means that when someone sins, you are supposed to help to restore that person and to bear their burden while you're doing it...and then, we are fulfilling the law of Christ, which is love.

Well, that doesn't sound very fair does it?  I mean, most of the time, it's hard enough just keeping myself on this narrow path, not running off and doing my own thing.  I'm also supposed to be helping my brothers and sisters...when they sin???

This is compassion. Not to condemn them, but to restore them.

My experience has been that when I sin, it's not been from a desire to do evil, but from a desire to make the pain in my heart go away. And I have sinned a lot...not so much in recent years (at least in actions), but in my twenties and thirties, I was pretty wild.  And this was after getting saved at the age of 18.  I spent those years doing anything just to make the pain go away...but it never did. Until I got my life right with God again and let him begin to heal me.

But my point is, that I think that a lot of us are the same.  We look to a fallen world to ease our pain rather than the God who created us...and we screw up.  We hurt each other with the things we do and say.  And then we're supposed to restore each other.  It doesn't seem possible, does it, when you really look at it.  If someone sins against you, you're going to have to forgive them first before you can restore them.

This is hard...I would rather hold my pain close to me.  To say, 'see what you did!!'  But I can't. I have to.let.it.go.  I have to think of my brother or sister first.

Oh wait, isn't that part of the two greatest commandments?  Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  When I love my brother or sister as I love myself, then I'm going to consider what might have driven those actions.  I would always have an excuse for myself! Why wouldn't I look for an excuse in them?

I love how the Word of God all ties together.

When you can see the pain in each other that sometimes drives actions that are wrong, maybe you can feel compassion rather than anger.

That's the example that Jesus gives us. In Luke 13:34, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!"  Even though he knew that the Jews, and the city of Jerusalem, rejected him and were going to kill him, he still felt compassion for them.

This is a hard lesson, and not one that I'm very good at.  But my compassion runs deeper and further when God shows me the pain in that other person...and in me.