30 Days of HeartworkSample

Co-Suffering With Christ

HEART //

How incredible it is that God would call us his children! Because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, God has brought us into his family and promised us true life in him. As family, we have the privilege of sharing in the good and the bad, the glory of God, and in his sufferings. As we focus on compassion this week, let’s take a better look at what it actually means.

The original meaning of the word “compassion” is to “co-suffer” with another. There is so much more to compassion than feeling bad for someone or trying to solve their problem. How are we called to “co-suffer” like Jesus? Well, let’s think about it this way… to love our neighbor as ourselves means that we are open to feeling what they feel and are willing to put ourselves in their place. This leads us to experience a deep passion to understand any suffering they may be experiencing. It leads us to care! God feels the suffering of his children who are enslaved by things like poverty, fear, and the pursuit of worldly pleasures. He processes that pain with perfect understanding and maturity, of course, and we don't always have his perspective. But we must not allow this to harden our hearts. How often do we allow our feelings to be touched by the suffering of our fellow humans? When we feel it, we grow in compassion, and we give the pain to the Lord, who teaches us to handle it with the right perspective.

We are God’s children, and he has given us everything we need to become his hands or feet (or word of encouragement, or meal, or smile) to someone who is suffering around us. We become more like God when we engage our hearts with his, and we begin to care about who he cares about. When we follow in his footsteps, our life could get a little out of the ordinary, but isn’t that what being a Christian is all about? Putting others first doesn’t always mean selling everything and moving to a poverty-stricken community. But we must know that when we open our hearts and begin caring about the vulnerable people in our world, things will begin to look different… and for many of us in modern, ‘different’ could be a very good thing!

WORK //

Ask yourself if you are willing to co-suffer with Jesus even if it means that you may experience discomfort. Think about this: "An estimated 45 percent of deaths of children under age 5 are linked to malnutrition. Chronically undernourished children who manage to survive their first five years, often live with devastating results. Their bodies are stunted physically, they are highly susceptible to illness, and their brains are underdeveloped."* Many children living in poverty only get to eat one meal each day, which is typically a small portion of beans and rice. Take on the challenge of eating beans and rice this week--for lunch each day, for an entire day, or for the whole week! As you eat, think about what it would be like to eat that for every meal and have barely enough to survive. How would this impact your ability to learn, to play, and to prepare for your future?

*Statistics from www.compassion.com.