Compassion is a Trait of the Penitent, Not the Perfect

Note: this article was inspired by a challenge issued to write a story around the opening words in this article, which was culled from a Facebook post I've made. It's probably not what the individual was looking for, and I'll still try in that direction, but it's what first came to mind:I am actually more self aware than you realize. I'm deeply flawed and imperfect. I get it. And in examining those weaknesses, those flaws, I've come to understand even more about the nature of compassion.

See, I live in a "grace only" world, and, while I champion the doctrine, I don't quite feel it. Grace is a wonderful thing, it's a marvelous thing, but it is not the end of the story. I know and I trust that God has given me a clean slate, that the ledger when I stand before Him will be free of blemish, free of mark.

But that does not erase the marks from the ledgers of the people I've wronged through my life. They will walk through life bearing the marks of my past transgressions, and those marks are not so easily erased.

How woefully tragic, how heartbreaking, if the mistakes I have made are the very marks that keep them from the cross.

I have often stood in the middle of a group of people, in deep pain, in deep heartache, wondering why nobody around me could see it. It bugged me for an awful lot of years.

And then it hit me: I see that pain in others. Someone who has not seen that pain is less likely to see it in others. Someone who has never lived homeless or very close to it will not recognize the defeated shuffle of someone who has tried to hitchhike for hours, only to ultimately resign themselves to the 30 mile hike to the next town. Someone who has never known hunger will not understand when confronted with the look of hunger from another. It is much, much easier to see the need in others when we've had that need ourselves.

So what truly sparks compassion is an aching in our own hearts and souls. A need to express ourselves in reaching out to heal others. Compassion, then, is a trait of the penitent, not the perfect.

I cannot go backwards along the path that I have taken to get to this point. I can only go forwards. And it is quite possible that some of the people whom I have wronged in the past will never come before me again. And so the only response I can muster is to minister in the people I meet to the wrongs inflicted on them by others and hope that somewhere along the path is another likeminded Samaritan ministering to those whom I have wronged.

And this is where things get muddy, because many of my "grace only" friends would call that teaching salvation by works. But I would contend nothing is further from the truth. For I am in no way under the illusion that those works factor in any way into my own salvation; I am laboring on in the hopes they may factor in the salvation of another.

And that, really, is all that any of us can do.