Tag: compassion

What kind of comforter are you?

Hello loves

I am very sorry that April’s blog is late. I planned to complete it but lost track of the days.

Please forgive me  🙏

I was reading a passage in 1 Timothy a few weeks ago and came upon this verse.

Drink water no longer exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

1 Timothy 5:23 AMPC

Some Christians would want to scrub out this verse from the Bible for different reasons, but that’s too bad. It’s here to stay my loves  😝 [The debate of whether Christians should drink alcohol or not is beyond the scope of this post. I personally think it’s an individual decision.]

What caught my attention was that Paul did not pray in this verse. He did not ask Timothy to pray. He gave practical advice about what Timothy could do to manage his ailment.

I don’t mean to say that Paul or Timothy never prayed about the ailment. All I can say from this passage is that Paul approached things from a different perspective.

This made me think of the approach of the church (used very broadly) to healing. Often, as Christians, we can shame other Christians who have an acute or chronic illness who are not healed (immediately). We can sometimes assume (consciously or unconsciously) that the reason they’re not healed is because they’ve done something wrong. For example, we might think they have not prayed hard enough or long enough or used the correct strategy. We might think they have some sins they have not repented of, and this ailment is God’s judgement. We might think they lack faith, and that is why they are not healed.

Job 6:14-15 NCV

Think of Job (I’m currently reading Job). His friends were miserable comforters. They did not offer an iota of comfort but rather seemed more concerned with proving how wrong and flawed Job’s thinking was. I’m sure Job would have preferred his friends to keep their thoughts to themselves.

[1-2] Listen to what I am saying; that is all the comfort I ask from you.
[4] My quarrel is not with mortals; I have good reason to be impatient.
[6] When I think of what has happened to me, I am stunned, and I tremble and shake.

Job 21:1-2, 4, 6 GNT

We also seem to have an unspoken ranking for ailments that warrant “prayer and faith.” For example, someone who uses reading glasses to augment their vision accepts this as “normal” but thinks someone with cancer or another ailment lacks faith if they aren’t healed. There is a cognitive dissonance between the fact that the God who can heal cancer can just as easily heal long- or short-sightedness. I’m not asking people to ditch their glasses, just illustrating a point 😉

Apostle Paul is renowed as one of the most prolific apostles. He healed people by the power of God and even raised the dead. Yet, this same man gave his friend (spiritual son) practical advice on managing his frequent illness. He did not shame him. He did not give a Christianese 5-point suggestion on how to solve the issue. He actually digressed from his main point to give this piece of advice to Timothy. It gives a glimpse of the care and concern Paul had for Timothy’s welfare.

To be very clear, I am not dismissing or diminishing the place of prayer in the work of healing and relief from illness (regardless of its severity). We serve a God who heals. Prayer and encouragement are part of how we can help people with health challenges, but there are other things we can do.

What I would like to see more of is:

  • Genuine compassion and empathy for those having difficulties with their health, mental or physical.
  • We can remember them in our prayers.
  • We can listen without giving solutions. Just listen. Don’t correct their theology or censor them. God can take it (read the psalms). Sometimes, people just need to vent.
  • We can be honest and say we can’t imagine what they’re going through.
  • If they seem open and perhaps ask, we can give suggestions that have perhaps worked for us.

So in summary, think of practical as well as spiritual ways to support people dealing witg health challenges. Ask God for guidance on which tools to use each time.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you because you are a healer. You love to heal, but sometimes the healing does not come when we want, and this can be very difficult to understand. We ask that as we wait for our brothers and sisters to be made whole and enjoy good health, helps us to be compassionate. Give us ideas of ways in which we can help practically. May we not add more burdens to their shoulders by making them feel guilty or ashamed. Compassion motivated a lot of the healing you did. Grant us wisdom to always act out of compassion in Jesus’ name, amen.

Click here for a good, balanced resource if you’d like to read more.

Pete Greig – God on Mute

Please comment, share and like. Be blessed  😇 🙏

Posted on by Sinmi Featured 0

Judgy much…

Hello my loves

I’m sorry I did not post yesterday. I should have planned better. That being said, let’s get right into today’s post.

A while ago I watched a movie which made me think about how sometimes as the church (the people in the church), we are lacking in compassion. In this film, a pastor’s wife was very critical of others, very controlling, authoritarian and was the moral judge of all. Her tongue was scathing and life was very far from it. With every word she spoke, she was cutting people down. She condemned a teenage girl in church who was pregnant out of wedlock and essentially isolated this girl and her mother. I think this girl later died shortly after childbirth although if she’d received help from the pastor’s wife for appropriate medical care, she might have survived. Little did Mrs Pastor know that her teenage daughter was also pregnant and seeing how her mother handled her friend’s pregnancy, opted for an abortion. I don’t remember what happened to the pastor’s daughter.

Seeing this play out was sad for many reasons. One reason was that the girls in this plot were not treated with grace or compassion. The fact that the pastor’s wife was the perpetrator of this wickedness made it worse. You’d hope that she would be a go-between if she observed that in her church. More importantly, the knowledge that this film reflects what happens in real life.

The fact that the consequences of someone’s sin are publicly expressed does not make the sin worse than someone else who seemingly gets away with it. For example, Premarital sex is wrong, period. A resulting pregnancy is not a reflection of the “grade” of the sin. Stealing is a sin, period. Whether you’re caught or not is not a reflection on how bad the sin is. All sin is inherently bad. I don’t believe God has a ranking scale for sin. All sin has the same spiritual consequence – separation from God. The physical consequences can differ based on what’s done. Someone who steals food worth £5 and someone who steals millions are both wrong but the (physical) legal consequences will be different. I think as humans, one mistake we make is that we use the physical consequences of a sin to rank how bad it is.

Yesterday in church we discussed Jesus’s interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:7-30,39). Although Jesus spoke the truth to her he did this gently and without condemnation so much so that she left the interaction, not to hide in shame, but with a desire to bring people to Jesus. It is not documented that Jesus tutted at this woman and demanded she fall to her feet weeping in repentance before he offered her living waters and unfettered access to God.

The church, this mammoth structure with many expressions, is in reality made up of imperfect people like you and me. Many times we get it wrong as we work out our salvation. Oftentimes we might need correcting or someone to help us examine our behaviour. (Read Luke 17:3-4)

I think there are a few things I’d like us to consider.

  • As the church, we are not called to judge non-Christians by God’s standards. Their (im)morality is not based on a relationship with Jesus so we should not be surprised if their actions go against what we believe to be right.
1 Corinthians 5:9-13
1 Thessalonians 5:14
  • As the church, we are called to correct gently in love.
Galatians 6:1-5
Matthew 7:1-5
  • As the church we are called to be careful when we think we’re standing firm and ensure we’re not on the edge of a downward spiral. Don’t be so sure you can not make the same mistake you’re judging someone else for. (Read 1 Corinthians 10:12)
  • As the church, we’re called to be many things. We are NOT called to be judgmental, full of condemnation, threatening and guilt-tripping (verbally and otherwise) people into submission. We do not motivate (read control) people with fear. That is not what God stands for.  The Holy Spirit who is our guide convicts. He does not condemn. So let’s take our lead from him in our interaction and even thoughts about things we see.
Romans 14:10, 12-13

Lord, I thank you for this topic of how we respond to others when we think they’re out of line. I know I’ve been guilty of judging people in my mind even if not outwardly. That’s not better than someone who judges outwardly. Lord forgive me for these times and help me to be more aware of when I’m doing this. Lord help me to remember that I’m not perfect and I’m not “better” than anyone. We just make different types of mistakes but your grace and mercy cover us all. Lord help me to be compassionate towards others and instead of judging, let my first instinct be to lift them in prayer. In instances where you might be encouraging me to speak with a person, grant me a heart of compassion such that I deliver the truth your way. Just as I might correct people, help me to also be open to receiving correction from others as required. Lord help us to be accountable to one another without taking offence. As we start to wind up the year, if there are people in need to apologise to, where I’ve been harsh, Lord reveal to me. Grant me the courage and humility to apologise and make amends in Jesus’s name, amen.

Posted on by Sinmi 5