Moved with Compassion

Throughout the New Testament gospels we read of Jesus being 'moved with compassion' just before he performed a dramatic healing or other miracle related to the needs of the people he encountered. The word translated compassion is the greek word splagchnizomai which literally refers to the intenstines and vital organs from which deep emotions such as anger and love were said to issue from. What we see in the life of Jesus was that compassion always led to corresponding action and intervention. When Jesus felt compassion it literally moved him.... it changed things from what was to what should be. During much of the 1990's I lived in a remote mountainous area in Northern Pakistan. We helped to establish an eye hospital there in a city called Gilgit. We would see patients in an outpatient clinic and also perform surgery on those patients with operable conditions such as cataracts. Unfortunately, we would sometimes see patients with conditions for which we had no medical or surgical cure. Most often those conditions related to severe trauma or retinal diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa.
  One clinic day I was assisting Dr. Stephen Smith in his office when we examined a young woman in her early 30's who was completely blind. She had no ability to perceive light at all. She was married with two young children clinging to her during the examination. Her husband appeared to be completely distraught. He was looking for hope.....what could we do to change the horrible prognosis he deeply feared.... to care for a wife completely blind and his two small children in a poor village? We were honest with him upon our exam. We had no cure for her condition (advanced retinal disease). Dr. Smith and I offered to pray for this family and to be honest it was hard to do so. I felt almost physically weak as I joined in prayer for this young woman who needed a miracle. There was no immediate answer to our prayer. As she struggled to walk away from us I gazed down the hallway in her direction... it was absolutely heartbreaking to see her holding tightly to her husband with the children grasping at her flowing Shalwar Kameez. At that moment I felt a deep inner compassion flowing out of me in her direction and I cried out silently, "Oh, God, have mercy....heal this woman." I continued to pray for her and told Mary about this woman when I arrived home that day. She had come from her village a 3 hour journey and returned that same day.
  A few days later we had a larger than normal crowd in our outpatient waiting area and it was louder than normal. There was lot of commotion and one woman was being pushed forward out of turn. People were pointing at her and said she has something to tell us!  The woman was unrecognizable to me at first. It was the same woman who only days earlier had been completely blind. Now that she could see her facial features and her physical bearing were completely different. Her story was that after we prayed she had started back toward her village and gradually began to to see. She began to tell her story to the village and many of her friends and family wanted to come back to the hospital to tell the story and to find out what had happened. We examined her eyes and found her healed.... though in need a mild prescription for glasses!  She left rejoicing and we were all stunned.  It's not every day you pray for a blind person and they see again...but I felt I learned something on that day I don't soon want to forget. I want to be moved with compassion when I encounter people in great need. I want to feel what God feels when he encounters hurting people. I want to see what God sees when he visualizes people in need.  I want to hear what God hears when he listens to the cries of the hurting, broken and needy people that are in my world.
  Over the past two weeks as I have found out I have a cancerous tumor growing in my right eye I have encountered people moved with compassion. Some people have been moved to pray.  Some people have been moved to give. Some people have been moved to speak words of encouragement. Something else has happened during this time. That same feeling of compassion I felt for that young mother and wife in Pakistan has been renewed, deepened and grown in my own heart. I am looking for opportunities and listening to God for ways he can use me again in helping heal others going forward.  I want to be moved with compassion.

Jim