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Self Compassion as a Christian worldview.

Compassion, a word that carries with it feelings of love and security. When we were children, and we saw a bird with a broken wing on the side of the road, my first instinct was to care for that bird, but being a child, I needed to find someone bigger than me to help. I remember a time, when a sick animal possibly a bird was badly injured in my parent's backyard. I remember the feeling I got when we buried this animal in our back yard. It was a feeling of sorrow, and coming from a loving home, these childhood experiences fostered deep compassion, not just for others, but for myself as well. I just recently watched "Self Compassion with Kristin Neff" on YouTube, and surprisingly agreed wholeheartly with everything she was saying.

I would like to consider myself as a compassionate person, but as I am learning when we have compassion for others and not ourselves, it can very easily lead to hatred of yourself and burnout. When you are in a position of caring for someone, you can very easily forget to show yourself compassion, and I would like to address this as a currently practising Christian. My God has been called the father of Compassion, and Jesus was known for his mercy. Jesus asked his followers then, as
he asks them now, to be compassionate people. When I think of compassion, I think Buddhism not necessarily 21st century Christianity, and there is a reason for that. The reason being, that no religion is perfect, but I am becoming more and more sensitive to the spiritual abuse that is taking place within my own religion, and it is making me feel uncomfortable.

The heart of Christianity as I believe and know it, is the forgiveness of my sins. It took humility to bow my knees and accept by faith that I was repentant enough for Christ to forgive me. That is the essence of my belief in the Christian God. I believe we are living in a time where church leaders are loosing focus of the ever compassionate forgiving Messiah, and are being Christ to people in a way that demeans their faith in God. I believe some of this has to do with unforgiveness within the church, and the belief that Sunday church is more important that actually "living out" my faith.

I believe this lack of belief in the bible within Christianity is opening up doors within other compassionately driven religions, and is allowing me to see more clearly, just where the church is in history right now. What makes people happy in their faith or belief in God is a stable religious organisation. Because of the fact that people are growing tired of this coldness within their own hearts of belief, is an indication that the church might not have caught up to the rapid changes within our own society, now in the 21st century. The call that we be compassionate people hasn't been heard by the faithful, is because our leaders seem to be struggling with self-compassion.

The reason why we lack self-compassion, is because it is wrongly mistaken as self love or the bible verse that says "In the Last days, men will be lovers of themselves." If you interpret this verse to mean that Christians are not to have self compassion for themselves, then what do you do with Jesus' words "Love your neighbour as yourself?" When the bible talks about men being lovers of themselves, it is talking about greed and selfishness, the opposite of self love! Untill the church realises that it's ok to "love yourself" there will be a lot more abuse and self hatred with in Christianity. The evangelical doctrine of total depravity is not an excuse to act like a person with no compassion. Start loving yourselves Christians then change the world. This is Mike.        

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