Feeling

"Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. -Isaiah 49:13

"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
- Matthew 9:35-36

"...Father, i have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, thew his arms around him and kissed him." - Luke 15:18b-20

"Jesus wept." -John 11:35

Since i have started work, i spend a lot of my time working, naturally. So i find myself longing for summers past where i could spend my time on other things. Over and over again i think back to my time at camp particularly as a counselor. My first week of my second summer was one of the toughest weeks i ever had a camp. I had 8th grade boys, 8 of them, and seven of them were great. One was not, he was ADHD and i think slightly evil bent on taking me down. He would often recruit the rest of the cabin to take part in some way with him so it was often kinda crazy and they did their fair share of picking up pine cones all over camp. So it's very difficult to try to display the love of Christ to them while at the same time wanting to throw them through the wall. Haha, jk lol, but seriously.

At some point during the week we would sit down with every camper and have 'one on one' time. This was a chance to get to know them better and to let them know you better on a personal level. Most importantly it was a chance to get to know where the kids were spiritually. i would usually try to get these done the first few days of camp so i could relate to the campers better. Normally i really look forward to these cause when you finally get a 12yr old one on one and show them you care about them, the tend to show their human side. But i was not looking forward to my time with this kid. But thursday came and the time came where i needed to do it.

Without going into much detail these conversations would usually focus on me sharing with the campers about how their salvation is not dependent on whether or not the hit their brother, or went to church, or lied, but that when they become Christians the Holy Spirit comes inside of them and that's how God sees us, is not has sinners, but has pure and blameless cause God lives in us, Eph 1:13-14. But this one on one was different. It came to the point where I told him God wants him and that being a christian means an eternity with him, but without Him we are destined for hell. He told me that he wasn't a christian, which i knew, but that he didnt really care what would happen. That was kind of the short story but i hope you get the point. The reason i am sharing this is not because he didnt become a christian, but because for the first time in my life i began to understand those verses at the beginning of this blog.

I was crushed. Literally inside, i was broken hearted. I was glad he was honest, but i was so furious with how satan can twist our hearts that we can't see that our only hope is God in whom we have life, joy, hope, and eternity, and how he can say, 'you dont need that, look, here is video game.' or whatever he uses to distract us. The rest of the day was not a good one. I cannot accurately explain what i was going through. All week i couldn't stand him and then all of a sudden i sat down with him for 45 mins, and my heart was bleeding for him. The week ended with him telling me that he learned a lot and he shared that he could really feel the spirit during worship that thursday night, but i didn't see a decision. So i don't know where he is in this journey now but hopefully i will someday.

God is so good, cause he used this kid who i wanted to crush to teach me what compassion looks like. Oh man, let me tell it is a lot harder to be the center of the universe when you start to care about others well being more than your own. It really changes the way you look at people and it kinda uproots your priorities just a bit. When you start to understand that we are all hostages of a broken world you start to find it much easier to love people who are living dead. You realize we all need Him, and that there is an epic battle for our souls, and those people who live in the bottom of a bottle or just looking for the next high or whatever, are just trying to fill the hole that is left when you are separated from your Creator. If i can be real for a moment, as a Christian who was fortunate to spend almost 16yrs before becoming one, and two more before i started to live like it, i can understand how easy it is to mistake that hole of not knowing your creator as needing to just be cooler, or smarter, or better looking or more successful or making the best team . Once you accomplish that, then maybe that hole will be filled, until you realise that with ever success that hole just gets bigger cause you realise that you can't make it go away, you just go deeper and deeper until you don't recognize yourself any more and you have hardened yourself so that you don't think you even have a hole. Let me say that the world becomes a very dark and cold place when you have no hope.

All this to say, is compassion is dangerous. It will push you to understand the human condition, and you might find yourself loving people who you thought you never could. You might just weep, you might just become more like Jesus. And i don't know what this looks like for you, but this is how i learned to understand compassion, i wish i remembered this lesson more often, i think God would be glorified in my life much more, but i hope i'm doing better than before.