Seeking Compassion

More and more I see the evangelical world slipping into a cold, hard, and compassionless dialogue that deals with doctrine as if we were handling stone tablets with which to beat each other over the heads. Truth is a bullet rather than a bandage and theology is a scolding rather than a beckoning. I will tell these three true stories and it is my prayer that God will soften our hearts toward Him and each other.

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I worked as a cook in the Brown Derby restaurant in Clearwater, Florida while finishing Bible college. To say I was busy would be an understatement, and in my first two years of marriage my wife had two children and my mother-in-law came to live with us after a painful divorce. Because of my size (6’4” 260) the other cooks affectionately called me “Gorilla”. I witnessed to every single co-worker and had the joy of seeing some come to Christ.

There was one eighteen year old kid whose name was Jeff. Jeff was a wild man and reminded me of my “pre-Christ” self. He was loud and funny and he was what people called a party animal. He would always tell of his drunken escapades and he and I became friends at work. He knew I was a Christian and I witnessed to him to no interest.

One night at church the pastor preached about having a burden for someone’s salvation, and during the message the Lord laid this kid Jeff on my heart. All during the message I kept thinking of Jeff and I wondered if he was working that night. At the close of the service I knelt at the altar and asked God to use me to show Christ’s love to Jeff. I drove to the restaurant and entered the kitchen and there was Jeff. He was being loud and happy and when he saw me he hollered “Hey, it’s Gorilla”. I walked over to him and said “Hey Jeff, how’s it going?”.
“Great”, he said. I asked him if I could speak with him for a minute and he said “Sure”. I looked into his eyes and told him that God had laid him upon my heart. I related some of my testimony to him and the smile fled from his face and he began to look at the floor. I told him about Jesus and who He was and that He loved him and wanted to give him a new life as well as eternal life.

At the end I said, “Jeff, don’t you think you are in need of Christ, personally?”.
Jeff looked up at me and said, “Gorilla, I know what you’re saying is true. My mother has been praying for me for years now, she sings in the choir at Calvary Baptist Church. But I’m not ready yet, I cannot change right now. But I appreciate what you said.”. I prayed for him and said good-bye.

One week later Jeff was killed in a motorcycle accident.

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Years ago I was an assistant to a pastor. One of my ministries was being a part of the administration of the Christian high school that was associated with the church. I interacted with students and parents alike and in that capacity you get attached to the kids. There were two particular girls, sisters, one a fourth grader and the older a freshman in high school. Their grandmother worked in the elementary school and they were two wonderful girls.

Their mother was a drug addict that had deteriorated into letting the grandmother and grandfather take the girls. These girls prayed for their mother to come to Christ and come home to be their mother again. I can remember many tearful times of prayer together. One day the pastor came into my office and closed the door. He informed me that the girls’ mother no longer wanted anything to do with them, and that she had legally given the grandparents adoptive custody. The pastor knew I had been close to those girls and he wanted me to inform them of their mother’s decision.

Now I cannot describe the emotion I felt as I prepared to look into two sets of dark brown eyes and tell these precious girls their mother had abandoned them. What words are adequate for times like those? How do I break their hearts while my own heart breaks for them? How do we deal with the absolute cruelty of such a circumstance?

So I called them and their grandmother into my office and with stammering lips I told them with as much compassion as I could that the mother they had prayed for had not only rejected Christ, she had rejected them. With tears streaming down their faces we prayed and asked God to comfort them in a time of unspeakable pain. They of course were devastated and so was I.
I drove home afterward and sat on my bed and wept before the Lord. I do not know what happened to those girls but every once in a while my mind brings me back to that day.

I will never forget that experience.

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We had prayed for many years that God would protect our children. As our only daughter went into her senior year of high school we began to discuss and pray for the college she would attend. After some discussion, she decided to attend a major Christian university about 1000 miles away. We were overjoyed and prayed that God would move in her life and call her to whatever pleased Him.

So off she went. One year, two years, and three years. There was only her senior year left and we were so proud to think she would soon graduate. It had been a financial sacrifice but it was well worth it. My wife was obsessive about planning a graduation party and all of us were joyfully planning her return for good.

One Sunday afternoon the father of my business partner who were both my friends and brothers in Christ called me to meet with them in my Sunday School room. The company had been going through some tough times and I thought they wanted to discuss business matters. As we sat down I suddenly sensed this was no ordinary business meeting, something else was on their mind.

The father told me there was no easy way to tell me this, but my daughter was seven months pregnant. To say I was devastated was an understatement and I wept uncontrollably with my head upon the desk. What had happened and how was I going to tell my wife and my mother-in-law and my two sons? I was absolutely broken before the Lord and I felt totally humiliated. For months my heart was so heavy I thought that I would never laugh again.

Beside watching my mother die I have never felt such pain.

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I have shared these three stories for a reason. While we sometimes play such doctrinal badminton we can lose sight that there are people in pain who are need of our compassion, surely not our judgment. It is beneath the One whose name we bear to engage in such compassionless banter without ever considering the human suffering all around us. It is beneficial to sharpen iron with iron, and to learn from Biblical exchanges, but it is unchristian to never stop and gaze at even our enemies and imagine that all of us at one time or another are related by the human condition this side of heaven.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Our venom must turn to salve, our caustic tone to beseeching, our condescension to compassion. Does your heart ever break over the plight, both now and eternally, for the multitudes? Do we see men as objects rather than fathers, brothers, grandfathers, and the recipients of the common pain we all have felt? Let us resist the temptation to engage in vitriolic attacks against even the ones who attack us in that way. The Lord Jesus lived in compassion and substantiated it all at Golgotha.

If the cross doesn’t speak to you of compassion, well then,

what will…