As you all know by now, I am very excited about the movement called People of the Second Chance. They have a mob within the movement, called the Grace Mob. which I am part of as well.

In the Grace Mob’s vision document they list 5 things that are extremely important to them, and every member of the Grace Mob. This however should be 5 defining personality traits of each one of us out there.

Today I want to spend some time on the First of the 5 character traits, Empathy, but do not despair, the other 4 will follow in quick succession during this week and next week.

Empathy

Now, how the Grace Mob define how they see empathy is the following:

You have a heartfelt connection to the pain and struggles of others. You bring comfort and not judgement. You are an effective heart handler to those who are hurting. As you help others, you help yourself. You avoid selfishness.

Simply reading this again now, screams Jesus to me. When you read this, does this not embody who Jesus was when he walked here on earth?

I tend to think, that if you ask God to break your heart for the things that break His heart, this will become a natural trait in your personality. You simply will not be able to ignore those people that are hurting. You won’t be able to walk past that person that is crying next to the road. You will not be able to ignore the single mother of 3, without a job, begging for your scraps next to the road.

Yet, when we hand something to those that are hurting, we give them out change.

If you think those people are standing in the sun, begging, because they are making good money doing it, you are seriously mistaken. Go and spend 5 minutes with those people, and listen to their stories, and you will get a totally different perspective on things. And if you do not walk away from that encounter a changed person, then you need to ask God to soften your heart.

We are called to take care of the widows, orphans and the oppressed. So why don’t we do it?

Why do we rather go to church every Sunday, and walk out of there, filled to the brim with teaching, and go home and do nothing about it?

We need a reality check in life. Everything does not turn around us.

Let us all ask God to break our hearts for the things that break His heart, and let us change the world, one step at a time, by helping those in our communities that need it the most.