Empathy Hurts

I’ve had a lot of tears in my eyes in recent years--from 911, to live pictures of people dying, to starving children, to the world’s daily pains. There have been times when I have found myself wishing that I wasn’t so tender-hearted, but being a Christian means that we are touched with the feeling of other people’s pains, painful though it may be. That includes knowledge of the unspeakable horror of eternal judgment. It means that we are sorrowful, because we are acquainted with grief. The world can tune out, but we dare not. So never think of asking God to take away your tender heart, and never allow it to become calloused through apathy. It is compassion that warms our prayers and fires our zeal to reach the lost.