Empathy…I read this definition:  “The ability to understand or enter into another persons reality, motives, situation and feelings.” It’s the ability to remove yourself from the center of your understanding and chose to see situations through another persons reality. Really…the opposite is self-centeredness and pride.

Our default setting is to evaluate, judge, and compare everyone to our experience, reality, sandards and motives. We can’t help but define normal as we ourselves are. We so easily think that our “normal” or our standards are the most right. We judge or critic people because they are not like us. They don’t feel like us, think like us, act like us or value what we value. While I obviously believe in absolutes of right and wrong, I also believe that we should rarely think we absolutely know what they are and absolutely know how to live them out.

Without empathy, we generalize, stereotype, and judge. Without empathy, it’s impossible to treat people the way Christ did. Without empathy, it’s impossible to live a compassionate life. Without empathy, we push people away by our self-centered expectations of them to become like us. Without empathy, we focus on the weaknesses of people rather than on their gifts and strengths.  

It’s much easier to empathize with those we like more or have invested the time to get to know. That is not the test of Christ-like self-emptying. While empathy might be easier for some, we can all learn to see and understand from the perspective of whoever it is we are relating too. We can all choose to shelve our generalizations and stereotypes before passing judgement. The result will be an ever increasing community of grace dispensers that draw people by the attractiveness of our humility and Christ-likeness.

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