Yesterday Pastor Brad continued his weekly series on how to find ourselves...if you are Christian, you know the drill...to truly find yourself, you must lose yourself, etc. I have heard many, many sermons on this subject and thought I had a good understanding of the concept until yesterday. He has been picking specific words to talk about, and yesterday's word was, "compassion". As he was defining it, he said something that caused me to pause, and wonder about, so I will share it here. That word was, "sadness".
We spend our lives trying to avoid being sad. We actively seek happiness; we don't want any problems, we try not to cry, we avoid situations that cause us to think about hardship, death, etc. It is a word and emotion that we avoid. We believe the answer to living our lives actually is to seek the opposite of sadness. Here is the rub that is causing me to think more about it. Without feeling sadness for others' situations, we may never get involved, and without involvement we cannot show true compassion. That word is defined by our actions to help and change situations for others. Sadness as a feeling is such an underrated emotion.
What would we be like if we actually sought out sadness? To actively seek the suffering of others, recognize it, understand it, and be moved into action by it. How much more could we grow and mature if we did? What if we embrace our sadness and have it motivate us to action?
Why is God so attracted by our sadness? I think it is because it is at that point where we realize we can't control what is happening in our lives; that we are losing something (or even someone) we have put an immeasurable amount of value in. God wants to fill that void, he wants us to see and seek him at that point. Maybe we become the essence of God when we react to others' sadness. The root of compassion is empathy put into action.
Chow!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I totally agree. I think that is why so many people ignore the major issues that are in our community and our world in general. If they actually take the time to think about these issues, they are sad. But that is not a problem, that is an inspiration. Maybe not "inspiration" in the sense that we have heard before... but it can inspire you to do something about it. To speak up and tell other people, to raise money, to help in any possible way. People always tell me my job must make me depressed working with HIV+ families, but it is always inspiring. It makes me work harder to help them every bit I can and knowing that the research I am doing will make a difference.
Of course it is all about balance - a little bit of sadness is a good thing to put life in perspective.
Post a Comment