A Life-Changing Challenge
Jesus doesn’t call us to be tolerant. He calls us to be compassionate. (M.H. Puccini)
I picked this image because compassionate actions toward others is frequently disruptive, just like the water crashing over these rocks,
A Word about Old-Fashioned Tolerance
When I was a young adult a few decades ago, “being tolerant” meant treating people with respect if they believed differently than you did. Everyone would share their opinions about different issues. Once in a while, things got heated. Often they continued to disagree—but people valued and respected each other.
You’ll still find this quality in some older adults. It’s part of their cultural DNA.
The difference between the old and new definition of tolerance is pretty striking. Today people are immediately treated with contempt and even hatred if they don’t share the “right” beliefs and worldview.
All further exchange of ideas gets abruptly cut off. The doors slam shut. To the older generation, today’s “tolerance” is highly intolerant.
Please forgive me, but I miss the good old days.
Compassion Costs More
Compassionate people often interrupt their own lives to help someone else.
A phone call causes them to get up in the middle of a football game. Or lose out on a good night’s sleep. Flood victims find shelter, hot food, a warm bed and a shoulder to cry on. Strangers pick up hammers and saws to re-build homes they’ll never live in. Volunteers get to know the stories of the homeless people who show up at the rescue mission at mealtimes. The meal servers cheerfully greet regulars by name as they walk through the door.
And sometimes, compassion causes a person to radically alter their entire life for a stranger.
Suicide Call: A Story of Two Changed Lives
Once a police officer was trying to talk a teenage boy out of jumping to his death. The boy suddenly got angry, and told the man that he was homeless, hungry, dirty and cold. So why not kill himself? What was there to live for?
The unmarried officer gave the teenager an extraordinary promise. Don’t commit suicide. You can move in with me. I’ll take care of your needs and adopt you. We’ll become a family, father and son.
It could have been a piece of trickery, but it wasn’t. Because the cop kept his word.
His compassionate heart changed his own life forever, as well as his adopted son’s.
My Own Journey
As I’ve walked with Christ over the last several years, He’s continued to stir me up to live more and more compassionately. Sometimes I get grumpy when my plans are disrupted. I’m still a very flawed human being. But I do know one clear truth: compassion has to lead to action.
Otherwise it’s not Jesus’ brand of compassion.
This image came from the Pixabay.com website.
Resources:
I read about the cop and the suicidal teenager several years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pull up this story on the Internet. It remains the most striking act of sudden compassion I’ve ever heard of.
Instead, here is a short video of another single police detective adopting two brothers. (link)
