Promptings - The Hidden Strength of Compassion
Compassion emerges and becomes operative in our responsiveness to promptings. Promptings are inner urges, unsolicited, to move out of our comfort zone to come to the aid of a person in need. Behind mercy lie promptings. We are well acquainted with them, but do not always follow through on them.
I was once in the midst of busy Heathrow Airport in London, moving from one flight to another. An old woman, small in stature, was pushing a mountain of luggage on a cart before her. So great was the pile that she could not see over it. Then the unexpected happened. With her cart she hit against a barrier in the floor, the cart stopped abruptly, and the mountain of suitcases tumbled down around her. I saw her great plight, sensed a prompting to go and help her restack her luggage—and didn’t respond. I have regretted my inactivity ever since.
When we feel a prompting to help another person, it is God wanting to meet that need through us. In such moments we are transformed into emissaries of goodness and strength. God longs to touch the needy through us, thereby elevating us to angelic status: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve?” (Hebrews 1:14).
The Samaritan was prompted to help the injured man lying by the side of the road and did so out of mercy. But he also persevered in his doing good. He took the wounded man to an inn, paid to have his needs met, and came back to see how he was faring. In other words, the Samaritan exhibited the soft-keeping of perseverance, of which Paul wrote, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).
Doing good over the long haul, because the need is so pervasive, is persevering. William Wilberforce spent his entire life battling against the evils of slavery in eighteenth century England. Despite great opposition, he never gave up. In 1787, by a majority of three hundred votes in the House of Commons, shortly before his death, slavery was officially abolished in England. Wilberforce penned a small treatise entitled A Practical View of Christianity, in which he printed a prayer for perseverance: “Oh, Lord,” he prayed, “purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconstancy, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing.”
In the world presently there is not a refugee crisis; rather, we are faced with a refugee opportunity, an opportunity to do good to those who have lost home, country, means, family, and much more. But the great needs of refugees pouring into our countries won’t be met overnight. The soft-keeping of perseverance is what will ultimately win the day.
Welcoming Christ in My Neighbor
James Hunter hits the nail on the head when he states, “To welcome the stranger—those outside of the community of faith—is to welcome Christ. Believer or nonbeliever, attractive or unattractive, admirable or disreputable, upstanding or vile—the stranger is marked by the image of God. And so St. Paul also exhorted believers in this way, ‘Keep on loving each other as brothers,’ he said. ‘Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering’” (Hebrews 13: 1–3).[1]
Another soft-keeping quality that is needed for greater compassion is amnesia. In all of our giving, we practice the humble art of benign dementia, forgetting how noble we are in giving. Jesus spoke of this great quality in his Sermon on the Mount: “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:3–4).
Pride is the enemy of goodness unto others. Therefore, to give and to forget that we have given is a hedge against our tendency to puff up our egos.
Call to action
Pray the prayer of Wilberforce today:
“Oh, Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconstancy, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing.”
In a next blog series I wish to explore with you some of the content of my new book, Go Low: Learning Humility in a Hubristic Age.
[1]James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 245.