The Difference Between False Compassion and Real Compassion

About this sermon

When I was growing up, I had this really unhealthy approach to achieving success. What I would do is, estimate what the minimum standard of effort needed and then aim for my goals based on that. The inevitable effects of this method of lethargy was usually failure in the form of reality or the world responding with negative feedback in the form of something like bad grades or goals that remained out of reach. So, what I would do, is reset the minimum amount of effort slightly higher, and then try again. The experience of failing and trying again was a persistent reminder that I had to make improvements. I have to learn what hard work actually looks like and stop embracing a pattern of laziness if I want to avoid the negative consequences of my bad attitude. In other words, I was trying to find success in a world that didn’t exist; a world that would provide positive feedback where it wasn’t deserved. Instead I discovered the world as it actually is. It provided negative feedback to teach me how to conform to it rather than it to my wishful assumptions. And through that process, I have learned to improve and work harder and stop taking my goals for granted. Now imagine if while I was trying to find success with that approach, that some benefactor like one of my parents stepped in and interrupted the cycle of consequence that provided me with the feedback I needed to adjust my behaviour? What if, out of a desire to help me avoid negative consequences, they paid off my teachers so that I wouldn’t have to face the experience of getting bad grades. If that kind of thing happened, then I would have been spared the process, that was at times painful, but was necessary to teach me the lessons I needed to learn to become a better, and therefore happier, person. And likely, at some point, the consequences that the real world was trying to communicate to me, would eventually catch up to me at a time when there was much more at stake than just grades at school. Our problem as human beings is that we are wishful thinkers. We want to believe that the world will conform to our expectations. Instead, we encounter a world that provides feedback to us to help us conform to it and that’s why it’s so important for us to be able to receive that feedback, even if it’s painful. So often, that pain is the result of our assumptions being adjusted and until we adjust them, we will continue to experience negative consequences which can produce pain. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have embraced this idea that that compassion means preventing the experience of that pain. But what that actually produces is a persistent pattern of making the same mistakes without ever getting the necessary feedback to tell us that they are mistakes. In reality, the world we live in isn’t comprised of safe spaces where we never have to encounter things we don’t like. The world isn’t safe. The world is full of negative feedback, by design, so that we can learn and grow within it. True compassion helps people encounter the necessary feedback they need in order to help them make adjustments so that it doesn’t happen to them again in more painful or consequential ways. The etymology of the word compassion means to suffer with somebody. It means that you see what they are going through, and you walk along side them as closely as possible so that you experience their suffering too. It doesn’t mean that you prevent all forms of suffering that would lead to growth and maturity. The truly compassionate thing to do is to help the person who is suffering make choices that lead to maturity, growth, and prosperity. And if you’re a Christian like I am, you might be asking yourself how it is your called to respond in the name of compassion. Well, I think the answer is in the example of Jesus. Jesus, and by extension God, didn’t come to take away all of our suffering. He identified the condition of mankind and then chose to enter into it by walking side by side with us and suffering with us in dramatic fashion. Then he told us to pick up our own crosses and follow him. That’s what true compassion looks like. It points the way to authentic freedom and deliverance without fear of the suffering that we may have to experience together as we journey side by side. Please comment with your ideas about the video and if you find it interesting, please share it and subscribe. Twitter: https://twitter.com/briankeepsworth Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brianholdsworthmedia Business: https://www.holdsworthdesign.com

Topics

• Love & Compassion