Be Compassionate Like God
by Dan Jones, M.D.
Psalm 103:8
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
Matthew 14:14
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
The words “compassion” or “compassionate” appear in the Bible 88 times. To my surprise, 74 of those are in the Old Testament. This idea of the compassion of God first being manifest in Jesus just doesn’t fit with the evidence in the Bible. The Psalmist repeatedly refers to God’s compassion. Jonah was angered by God’s compassion for others. Compassion moved Jesus to heal. And Paul encouraged the Ephesians – and us – to be compassionate like God.
Of all these essential traits of a good health professional, this is the one that may be the most difficult to exhibit day in and day our. But it is absolutely essential if we are to be the health professionals God wants us to be. A colleague demonstrated real compassion to me. As I was arriving at the hospital early one morning, I encountered him leaving. He had come to the hospital to be with a dying patient and his family. I was surprised for several reasons. He was not on call that night. The illness, the patient, and the family had all been difficult. Despite his best care and the care of consultants, the patient’s problem could not be cured. Both the patient and the family had responded to this news days earlier with insults for my friend. It was a difficult situation. Over the next days, the patient slipped into a coma and in his last hours was not aware of anything.
In his care of this difficult patient, my physician friend had used all the traits of a good physician. He used faith, responsibility, humility, and stewardship. But none of these had resulted in healing. Now, in the last hours of this patient, despite the hard feelings of the family and the fact that the patient could not know of his presence or not, my friend rose from his bed to be with the patient and family in the last hours of his death. It was compassion that drove him to be there. He was fulfilling Paul’s exhortation to be “compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God Forgave you.”
Lord, when all other traits fail, help me be compassionate just as you are.
Dan Jones, M.D., MACP, FAHA, a board-certified Internist, a former medical missionary to Korea, professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chancellor of the University of Mississippi until 2015. Dr. Dan Jones is a member of CMDA.
Dr. Jones welcomes any comments or questions about what he has written and can be reached at - djones@umc.edu
Rounds with the Master, Spiritual Pearls from the Great Physician Devotionals are released every Monday and Thursday.
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
