The Gift of Compassion

Day 4

      THE GIFT OF COMPASSION

                                                              

     Have you ever taken a “gifts inventory”, where you answer a seemingly endless series of questions, total up your responses and you find out what your primary spiritual gifts are?   I’ve taken quite a few of these tests, and I am usually identified as having the same two or three primary gifts.

     I’m also consistent in getting really low scores on certain gifts.  One test assigned a numeric value to my responses; I got a zero for compassion.  So, you might think that if you need a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on, you should look elsewhere, but that’s not necessarily so.

     Let me tell you what happened one Sunday morning.  I was sitting in a Sunday School class, seated behind a female friend who, I knew, was going through a very painful episode in her life.  I felt prompted to pray for her, right in the middle of the lesson.  I gently placed my hand on her and started praying very quietly.  Soon she started sobbing, and God ministered to her hurt.  I prayed for quite a while.  Afterward, she told me how abandoned she was feeling, and how the Lord wrapped her up in His arms during that prayer time.  Through the hand of someone who scored a zero on the compassion scale, she felt the Master’s touch.

     

Here’s the thing about gifts: just because you aren’t inclined toward a particular gift, doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit won’t ever equip you with that gift for a particular person or situation.  God can use any surrendered and willing Christian for any purpose at any time.  Would you have chosen 12 poor, ill-educated nobodys to change the world after just three years of training?  Jesus obviously knew something about the operation of gifts in a willing, committed follower that the world doesn’t know.  Jesus knows something about you and your potential for service that you probably don’t know.

     “…The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  Galations 5:6(b) 

Questions for Reflection

Have you had an experience like that mentioned in the devotional, where you were unexpexpectedly used to demonstrate the gift of compassion?  When?

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Would you be willing to pray and ask the Lord to use you in this way soon?  Then be on the lookout, like it says in Hebrews, “consider how you can spur one another on to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). 

Write out a prayer reflecting the above statement.

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