Like a balloon, my soul must inflate with compassion to function. Unlike a balloon, my soul will not burst from over inflation.

When I reflect on God, I stand awed by His compassion. How He steadfastly loved the rebellious children of Jacob is beyond me. How He can have compassion on the likes of us with all of our inconsistencies is also beyond my understanding.

However, the poets and prophets of Scripture often use the word compassion to describe God. Surely, they do so as witnesses to the people’s rejection and His response of compassion.

On Moses’ second trip up the mountain with a new set of stone tablets, he encounters God standing beside him in a cloud. Scripture recites that God passed in front of Moses and proclaimed:

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

God is the compassionate and gracious God.

That is why I want to know Him.

Then Jesus appears on earth to give a face to God. We are hardly into the story when we read, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Time after time, Jesus stopped in His tracks and demonstrated compassion as an attribute of God.

That’s OK for Jesus. But, I am me.

Throughout the New Testament letters to the churches, writers remind us that as we follow Jesus, it is our role “as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, [to] clothe yourselves [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

OK—what does that look like for me?

Compassion, like grace, is a gift I can give to others.

As a seed planted by God in my soul, compassion grows as I experience life. After the first time I smashed my thumb with a hammer, suffering with a fellow thumb smasher invoked compassion.

I find compassion rolls from my life in concentric circles like those caused by a stone when thrown in a calm pond.

It is easy to be compassionate with my wife and children.

It is not difficult to extend compassion to friends.

I will express compassion to acquaintances though they are not friends within my inner circle.

A story of local or national tragedy received from a news outlet will most likely invoke a compassionate prayer.

I find compassion covers like a cloud those things I cannot change.

I think of Jesus’ early childhood, spent with Joseph and Mary as a family of illegal aliens living in Egypt. Trusting God, they were doing what they could to survive. The plight of the illegal alien in our own country invokes compassion. They too are God’s children just trying to survive.

Mass killings continue to shock me. All I can bring to the table is compassion as I ask God to comfort family and friends of victims.

Natural disasters strike with speed and power. Death and long-term recovery is all that remains. I want such tragedy to call for compassion within my Soul.

The problem is I know my real self. I am not as compassionate as I need to be. I can only be consoled knowing I am still growing.

Like you, I want to be more compassionate. That would make me more like Jesus.

Stay tuned. – Gary J. Sorrells