Something that I’ve been thinking about lately and can’t seem to come to terms with is this:
Why do Christians act shocked?
People who are close to us get divorced and our eyes get big and our jaws drop. A coworker is going through a hard time but they act like everything is flowers and candy and we think to ourselves, “How can they be doing so well right now??” The neighbor’s house goes into foreclosure and the judgment on “mishandling money” pops into our heads and there’s a part of us that wants to “tsk tsk”. An angry Facebook comment rages onto our newsfeed and we show our spouses, saying “Look at this!!! Can you believe they wrote that?”
And so the question becomes: Can you believe it? Our initial response is no, but our answer should be yes. We can believe it. We can believe that these things happen and they happen all the time around us. Instead of seasoning the situation with compassion, we season it with shock. And not only is it shock, its fake shock. Because deep down I know and you know that for the last who-knows-how-many years all of the above has happened countless of times and will happen countless of times in the future.
We live in a fallen world. If you were to know me only during the most difficult time in my life and you judged me completely on that time, there is a chance… and a good one at that, your opinion of me may be different than what it is now. And I don’t believe I’m alone in thinking that. Because you have that time in your life, too. And the person coming towards you on the street, who will pass you in a second might just be in that time of their life. So don’t act shocked. And don’t ACT compassionate. BE compassionate.
Paul says it so simply and so beautifully in Romans 14:7: For none of us lives for ourselves alone. And none of us dies for ourselves alone.