Compassion from Pain

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36 ESV)

I believe right now in my life that there is no weapon more powerful than daily prayer by name for the people that you want to reach and love. My mentor challenged my last year to pray for people by name and i wrote stuff down to pray for in some places but would always lose it and forget to pray about it. This year for some reason I decided to listen and seriously go into this. So I typed up everyone I could think of that I prayed for recently into a list and if I could I would write what I’m praying for that person. About everyday, I’ve been adding more and more people on my list and I think I have around 200 people that I pray for everynight now. It sounds crazy and you might ask me how do I get through it, and I have to say, yea, you’re right, it takes forever and sometimes I forget. It usually takes me more than an hour to get through the whole list, because while I’m praying more people will come into my mind and I’ll stop to write down their names. And since I still try to do my homework, sometimes I don’t get to finish. So what I do, is I grab the list out when I’m bumming around or even just walking to class, I’ll pray for them. It’s had an amazing impact on my life. Because I pray for them pretty consistently, when I see them, I’m a lot happier to see them and want to know and inquire more about their lives and how I can continue to pray for them. When you start praying for someone or people everyday, I truly believe that you’ll start to love them more, care about them more, and slowly be given the eyes that Jesus saw us through. Not to say that I’m becoming Jesus in anyway, cuz I still have wayyyyyy too many faults to even think that thought, but it’s changed my life and semester right now, and I continue to see God answering my prayers and working through the lives of the people that I’m praying for.

I was just thinking back to this past summer when I was on a summer project (missions trip) with Campus Crusade for Christ, and how there was this one instance that I can only think back to the verse above to describe. We were located at a university in East Asia which was located in a city, and in this city were a lot of poor immigrants who left their homelands to try to make it in the big city. A lot of them failed and end up living on the streets and collecting plastic bottles to make a living. So they were always on campus, especially around the basketball courts where I spent a decent amount of time just chilling with people, and there were tons of them, and they were pretty old too, which made it worse for me. It always saddened me that they were kind of treated like ghosts on campus, no one noticed them, kind of just ignored their very existence. Whenever they came close to me, I always tried to just chug my water so I could give them my water bottle. I always prayed silently for them when I was sitting down at the courts and not playing.

There was this one time I was just relaxing for a bit on the quad at the university before one of our team meetings. I saw this one old woman, who I recognized as one of the regulars at the basketball courts. I believe that she’s been so mistreated and abused by the city and people for so long that she kind of lost a bit of her own humanity. She was literally just trying to survive. The first thought when I saw her was that she was pretty far from the courts today and that she was walking on the quad with her big bag of plastic bottles, and that something was more unusual today. I started watching her and instead of going around and just picking up plastic bottles, she walked up to people on the quad. This time she didnt even bother asking people for bottles, she was asking for money. She walked up to people, and just stood there in front of them with her hands out until they gave her something. If they told her to go away she would just sit down. With this one couple she sat down next to them after they said no, and she took her hand and reached towards the girl’s pocket. The girl screamed and they got up and moved away. Every time, people would just look with pure disgust towards her. They would treat her like some kind of monster, like trash, something other than human. But I was just so saddened watching this whole thing happen over and over again as she went up to everyone on the quad. I sat there praying out to God to please have her stop because I couldn’t stand watching any longer, I would do anything to have her stop. I don’t know how else to describe it to you other than the feeling of deep sadness. She looked like she was around my grandma’s age and people were just treating her like trash, and she was so mistreated that it didnt even phase her anymore. I was almost crying inside while I was praying.

I finally got up and decided to run to the cafeteria to buy dinner for her before the place closed. I bought enough food to feed her and two other people and a water for her. After she finished with one person I went up to her and told her that I can’t give her money but I can give her food and that I bought dinner for her. She looked at the bag of food and still held out her hand for money. I was on the verge of tears asking her to stop asking people for money like that, and to please take this dinner and eat it. She took it and I walked across the quad, she never said a single word to me. I sat down and then continued to pray and watch her. She took the bag and right away went up to another person to ask for money! Then she finally sat down and opened the bag, looked at the food, took the water out, opened the bottle, AND POURED OUT ALL THE WATER, CRUSHED THE BOTTLE, AND PUT IT IN HER BAG. THEN SHE LEFT THE BAG OF FOOD THERE and walked away asking more people for money. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had true compassion on anyone, but that day, I could not think of anything else but the thought that she was harassed and helpless, and was placed in that position by the world. I was crying inside the whole time, and my stomach was hurting, I felt sick all over, and I felt even more helpless because I couldn’t really do anything. I was in a real physical pain. I can’t even begin to imagine what Jesus felt every single waking moment he was on earth. It would have been unbearable pain, seeing that everywhere you went, knowing that everyone in some way or form was harassed and helpless.

I believe that prayer brings us closer to that point where we truly start to love someone that we can’t help ourselves but to act through love and share the good news of God with them. So I ask that you’ll join me in praying daily for your family, for your friends, for your classmates, hall mates, fellowships, to the point where you’re in a real physical pain just thinking about them living without a love relationship with the most beautiful entity and person in this universe, Jesus. Compassion for people, I believe, comes from the pain of seeing the people that you love harassed and helpless.