Feeling Pain

Florida State was knocked out of the NIT last night, falling at the hands of South Carolina’s Gamecocks. That’s right. Those same upstarts from the Palmetto State that took down the mighty Gators two out of three times this year! Do I expect Gator fans to “feel the pain” of FSU partisans? Yeah, right…

All teasing aside, God has called us to share the pain of those around us. Every pain we endure makes us more sensitive to the suffering of others. Within the church, God calls us to takes those painful experiences of life and “bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).

Outside the church, we have been called to “love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27)”. This lesson is brought home by the example of a man -- a man whose whole life has seen him despised by another race. Going about his business, he encounters a man from that group – beaten and left for dead. He has the choice to just pass by. After all, a priest and a religious worker from the other group have already done so. But, this Good Samaritan stops and treats the man well.

The power of the gospel is the ability to see the whole world as we see ourselves. The old song says, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; the light of the world is Jesus.” We know that we shared the darkness with every person. Our desire is that they now come to the light. God grant that every negative experience He allows in our lives might become fuel for impacting others.