Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Colossians 3:12
Dear Lord Jesus, the gospel should be all the motivation I need for living as a compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient man. Especially when I consider this is how you relate to me 24/7, in full view of my ill-deserving ways. There’s never a moment when I will ever experience you as insensitive, unkind, proud, harsh or impatient. Indeed, through the gospel, I’ve become a part of God’s chosen, holy and dearly loved people.
Yet sometimes it takes a little “nudge” for my beloved theology of grace to lead to practical demonstrations of your compassion. Today is just such a day. As I pray and write, I’m in unwelcomed pain. It will be easier for me to clothe myself with compassion today than with cotton. Just because I exercise at the “Y” doesn’t qualify me to be a refrigerator mover. But in the painful stiffness of my back… in the inconvenient limitation of my movements… in the red-faced embarrassment of my choice… I don’t feel like throwing a pity party, I feel like praying for chronic sufferers—those who cry, “How long, O Lord?” with many more tears and much more anguish that I do…
Jesus, I pray for people with unrelenting pain in their bodies—those who no longer get any relief from physical therapy or medication. I pray for people with emotional and mental diseases—who live in the cruel world of delusional thinking and sabotaging emotions… and I pray for their families and care-givers. I pray for the unconscionable number of children in the world who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition… and for their parents who feel both shame and helplessness. Lord, these and many more stories of great suffering I bring before you…
And Jesus, I pray for the worst chronic suffering of all… for those who are living with great pain or with great prosperity, but who are “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants and promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Come Holy Spirit, come, and apply the saving benefits of Jesus to the religious and the non-religious alike… to those who may be in the church or in the culture, but who are not in Christ.
Jesus, I anticipate getting over this “back blip” pretty soon, but I don’t want to get over compassionate praying and compassionate living. So very Amen, I pray, in your all glorious and grace-full name.
