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Amazing Compassion

“Pay It Forward” is a movie about a middle school boy who, in response to his teacher’s assignment to change the world for the better, devises a plan he calls (you guessed it), “pay it forward.” The idea is this: instead of returning a favor received from another, the beneficiary responds by doing favors for three other people. I usually enjoy feel-good movies, and this is a feel-good movie.

I’ve come to realize that compassion has a phenomenon all its own: we are best comforted by those who have suffered what we now suffer, and our own compassion burns more deeply for others now experiencing the struggles we ourselves have encountered along the way. It flows not so much as a resolve of our will, but as a response of our heart. Have you seen it around you? Have you lived it yourself? Who, for instance, can understand the shock of a cancer diagnosis better than another who has absorbed the same? Who can come alongside one reeling from job loss better than those once similarly dismissed? Can anyone even begin to understand a life of addiction other those who have been humbled by its power and still live with its reality one day at a time? Injustices, unfaithfulness, grief—no matter our plight, it is generally the people who have pioneered these perilous paths before us who now strengthen us the most. And our deepest pools of compassion await those now navigating the raging rapids we ourselves once traversed.

To the church in ancient Corinth, St. Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4). This truth hasn’t changed at all since the apostle penned it two thousand years ago, has it? People are still people, and God is still God. And His compassion still flows most freely through those who have known its comfort. People like you and me.

Who around us will cry silently for comfort today?

Lord God, please send me as your instrument of compassion so that others receive the comfort they crave. Amen.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

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True Dignity

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15)

Mom had lived life in a way anyone would admire—with resilience and resolve, elegance and elan, wisdom and grace. A portrait of dignity. Now ravaged by disease and rapid in demise, she yet again showed a depth of understanding that people had come to respect in her: that so many of the things we value in this life—belongings and possessions, physical vigor and strength, steely independence—don’t follow us into the heavenly kingdom that awaits. “It all has to be stripped away, doesn’t it?” she mused. “Yes,” I replied, “I think you’re right.” We sat together in accepting silence.

But for the promise of eternal life, this would have been the stuff of tragedy. From the outside, pitiable; by human reckoning, outrageous. Yet as I watched Mom relinquish these things we so highly esteem, I couldn’t shake from my mind this perspective from the Psalms: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” It had long been for me a source of wonder and hope, but now the verse repeatedly came to mind and resoundingly came to life. For as Mom’s body steadily weakened toward its natural end, her soul yearned ever-stronger for a newness yet to come, reaching out for freedom from a body that now constrained her.

It is an experience that awaits all who trust in Christ Jesus. The apostle Paul explains it for us: “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16, 17).

As Mom faded from this world and set her sites on the next, there was no loss of dignity; instead, we only saw her grow in it—true dignity, the dignity that is now and forever ours in Christ. Precious, indeed.

Lord Jesus, our dignity—indeed our glory—is found in you and only in you. Thank you. From the bottom of our heart, thank you. Amen.

The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
(1 Corinthians 15:42-44)

 

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Birds of a Feather

A few years ago, my wife, Peggy, and I visited The British School of Falconry in Manchester, Vermont. To have the thrill of launching birds of prey—Harris Hawks, in our case—from our arm and receiving them back again? No need to ask us twice! Let’s go!

The hawks were quite a bit lighter than they appeared, between four and five pounds, as I recall. Of course, they consist largely of feathers, so what else should have I expected? When it was time to fly my hawk—Wallace, by name—I donned a leather glove on my left arm and secured between my fingers the two straps dangling from his legs. With a heaving hoist of the arm, I released the bird, letting go of the straps at just the right instant. Wallace embraced his climb with an eager flapping of the wings, taking an arcing glide path to a high perch in the field, some distance away. There he sat watching until with sharpest vision he saw me place a single piece of steak atop my gloved fist. Then, choosing a suitable return vector, he swooped in on an admittedly somewhat-nervous me, alighting on my outstretched arm and settling in before partaking of the treat that awaited him there—London broil, served “extremely rare.”

Astonishingly, the falconer explained to us that, though he protects, feeds, and cares for these birds daily, they have no more emotional attachment to him than to us first-time visitors! So when a bird’s belly gets full enough, he loses interest in both the caregiver and the care. Instead, from his field perch, he begins to scan elsewhere for other food—mice, for instance—and is perfectly willing to leave provider and provision behind.

And I have to pause and ask myself, is this how I relate to God? Do I accept all He has to offer in my time of need and then, once nurtured, turn my attention elsewhere? In my most honest moments, I have to say, yes, sometimes I do. And while we understand why Wallace might return to the wild from which he was snatched, it makes no sense for me to go back to the ways from which I am freed. Fortunately, God knows our heart, that we’re prone to stray. So in His limitless love for us, He patiently watches over us, and when our back begins to turn away from Him, He calls us again to Himself, to His comfort and care. For we have found our home; we live freely in Him.

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. (Isaiah 44:22)