Compassion…Where Has It Gone? …Welcome to my weekend musings about compassion. I was going to write something else, but after watching children being thrown back into the Rio Grande, and families getting hurt on illegal barriers where some have drowned, the burgeoning homeless camps, and the latest statistics on the horrors that seniors are going through in nursing homes—and so much more ugly stuff. All this has me asking, “where has our compassion gone to?”

Our borders are difficult, I get that, but we are also a plentiful nation that God has endowed for us to help others. There isn’t a town or big city where businesses don’t have “HELP NEEDED” signs. If people want to work let’s put them to work and change their lives as well. Hurling little kids into a river is certainly not the way to accomplish anything. We need to remember that we were ALL refugees at one time—even Jesus was a refugee. People have lost jobs, homes, still fighting long-covid—trying to get through the hard stuff of life. We all have problems and compassion is desperately needed more than ever before.

Some folks say “quit whining and pull-up your big-boy pants and get on with life.” Do we have lazy people, criminals with ulterior motives—of course we do! However, judgment still isn’t ours and these people are still God’s children. Just think about your life and how you would feel if it just fell apart, or the country you live in sells little boys to a rogue army and girls into the sex-trades, and women are not allowed to go to school and rape is a daily routine? This happens everywhere, and yes—even in America!

Proverbs 19:17 from the Message translation shows us a 2-way reward when we practice compassion: “Mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God pays back those loans in full.”

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 [Voice] we get the reminder that compassion is a mandate: “All praise goes to God, Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. He is the Father of compassion, the God of all comfort. He consoles us as we endure the pain and hardship of life so that we may draw from His comfort and share it with others in their own struggles.”

Think of the compassion that Jesus had for the outcasts, the ill, the refugee and alien—He never quit on them. Read Matthew 14:13-14, Matthew 20:30-34, Luke 7:12-15, Mark 6:34. In fact, the 4 Gospels sum up 37 encounters and no doubt, many more. When we go out of our way to help meet a person’s needs, that’s showing compassion! And doing so moves God’s heart in a big way because it was the way God’s Son lived. Time and time again, He was “moved by compassion” to help the people around Him no matter who they were, and you and I are called to do the same.

All the people on earth are made in the image of God and have been given the power to reflect that image to the world around us. We know that many do not believe that but they cannot change what God has created. They have lost their reflection of God’s image and for many, their struggles continue to mount up. One way we can help reflect God’s image and love is by showing compassion to them.

Think about a time when you were down-and-out, who consoled you, gave you kindness, compassion and the encouragement to rise up? We’ve all had people in our lives who have helped us, so why is it so easy to judge another and not return the compassion that you experienced? It’s time to put aside our prejudices and try to give a hand-up instead of a stern look, ugly words, and judgmental attitudes.

I think we need to look for opportunities to minister to those in need and show kindness and compassion and certainly give encouragement. Let’s be Jesus’ hands and feet and demonstrate His love to a lost and broken world. It may not be easy, but just imagine the change you can make in another’s life—and that change will also change you in wonderful ways you may never have imagined! AMEN.