Empathy

As a new teacher in a Christian elementary school, I found myself running to my teaching mentor, Margaret, daily (actually, multiple times throughout the day) with concerns and requests for advice in dealing with my little ones.  One thing she taught me was that ethics must always be the first lesson in a classroom, and empathy is the basis for driving the ethics you teach.  Children have a hard time seeing past their own needs and wants.  It's hard to empathize with the kid you've just swiped a jumprope away from when you NEEDED that jumprope ... thus lack a of empathy.  Humans are selfish and self-consumbed by nature, which is why empathy must be the grounding point for everyone's spiritual life and personal lessons.

What is empathy?  I used to just equate it with sympathy, but although the words are linked they are not really the same.  I believe sympathy is more of a detached feeling, while empathy combines feeling and identification.  1 Peter 1:22 says, "... love one another deeply, from the heart."  For me, that line is one of many from the Bible that embodies the act of empathy.  When you love "deeply, from the heart" you will also identify with each other "deeply, from the heart."

Although I understand empathy and I strive to love in that way, I still find myself lacking in love for others.  I still chose to love some and not love others.  I withhold my empathy from those that I don't feel deserve it ... but did I deserve the love that Jesus showed me?  Jesus identified with me in my selfish, sinful state.  He became my sin, so that I can have the opportunity to be free of it.  WOW!  In light of that, I can definitely empathize and love deeply someone that seems unfit to love.

The act of withholding empathy can be great or small.  Obviously I have a hard time identifying with a mass murderer, but how hard is it to identify with someone who always seems to have some sort of petty, physical ailment that they are complaining about?  HARD.  Their pettiness becomes a reason to withhold empathy because I unfairly reach the conclusion that they do not deserve a listening ear.  Reacting this way is completely unfair and unloving and unlike my Savior.

Within the context of 1 Peter 1:22-23, Peter is explaining that the deep love from the heart is evidence of our salvation and the work of the Holy Spirit within us.  He says in the first part of the verse, "Now you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.  For you have been born again ..."

Empathy is huge for us!  It's almost impossible without the Holy Spirit at work within us!  We need to challenge ourselves to deep love and empathy for those we pettily push aside.  No more justifying that action as deserved ... take a moment to relate, identify, listen and LOVE.