Paul writes in Philippians: “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete ... Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." (2:1-5) In this age of extreme anxiety these are life giving words. 

But it’s hard to hang on to these words some days. When our lives get stuck in worry and anxiety, our default is to live our life inward focused and self-absorbed; and when we spend too many days in this state, we begin to confuse compassion with pity. Howard Thurman says it well in his book: Meditations of the Heart:

“God is making room in my heart for compassion. There is already a vast abundance of room for pity. It is often easy to be overcome with self-pity, that sticky substance that ruins everything it touches. My list of excuses is a long list and even as I say it, I know that under closest scrutiny they disappear, one by one. There is pity in me – pity for other. But there is something in it that cannot be trusted; it is mixed with pride, arrogance, cunning. I see this only when I expose myself to the eyes of God in the quiet time. It is now that I see what my pity really is and the sources from which it springs.

"God is making room in my heart for compassion: the awareness that where my life begins is where your life begins; the awareness that the sensitiveness to your needs cannot be separated from the sensitiveness to my needs; the awareness that the joys of my heart are never mine alone – nor are my sorrows. I struggle against the work of God in my hear; I want to be let alone. I want my boundaries to remain fixed, that I may be at rest. But even now, as I turn to him in the quietness, his work in me is ever the same. God is at work enlarging the boundaries of my heart." (p.49)

God is always at work enlarging the boundaries of our hearts. It is through this experience of God’s active presence in our lives that we find the fulfillment of God’s call on our lives: to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus. ... It’s from this state of mind that compassion moves us from self-focus and pity to Other-focused and Compassion. I look forward to seeing you in church!

Through Christ,


Pastor Doug