Chapter 4: Compassion
Being compassionate – I don’t think I’m uncompassionate. I like to help people. I could be more observant – but that’s a lifelong process. Specifically there are certain types of hurting that I don’t think I notice very well. For instance, I didn’t notice how much I was hurting Brian in the past. This comes from being self-absorbed, and yes, I can be very self-absorbed. Especially for the year or more I was laying around feeling sorry for myself instead of doing something useful with my time. Truthfully, I feel a lot better now. At some point, I had some sort of breakthrough. I don’t feel that unhappy in my life – I am unhappy with certain situations but am trusting that God’s will for my life will shine through.

Another problem I have is recognition. I really like getting recognition. Sometimes it’s hard for me to do things when I know that I won’t get recognized for them. I may even do some things just for the recognition. BUT maybe I’m just being a little bit too hard on myself about this. I really like doing community service and buying gifts for kids at Christmas and all sorts of other things that I get no recognition for and I’m happy with that.

“Prayer is not twisting God’s arm to do what you wish, it is communicating with God about your needs and those of others and asking him to work his perfect will in their lives and yours.”

I know this is true. I also know that it’s hard to surrender your own will. It’s also hard to know if something is my own will or not. How is it that you know what God wants you to do? There are some easy answers like, “what is right and good” or “pray and he will tell you”. But really, what if you are faced with two equally right/good options. And what if you pray all the time about it, but you don’t know what the answer is? What if you have no idea what format God’s answer is in? There needs to be a better way to breakdown how you find out what you are supposed to do. I’m obviously supposed to be doing something right now.

I keep praying about it. I want to do the right thing. I don’t know if I’m getting an answer or not. I know what I think I should be doing/what I want to do. Maybe that’s correct. It’s different than everything I’ve ever wanted before. Maybe that’s an indication that it’s right. Maybe I didn’t really change, maybe I just started listening to what is right.

I was planning on talking about overlooking faults – but I’m just not feeling it right now. Maybe I’ll save that for later.