"GO--COMPASSIONATELY! "

Traumatic stress tends to make us introspective and focused on our pain, loneliness, and despair rather than on the Kingdom of God. Well, no kidding, Sherlock. Very few folks in the Church of Jesus Christ understand this mentality. We, of course, want to participate in every ecclesiastical matter--usually badly. After all, Jesus didn't discriminate in His commands for the people of God to go and make disciples. He didn't say to one group without PTSD, y'all go. To the PTSD group, "You're hurting, so if you feel up to it, go." He just said, "Go."

But there are some days when thinking about going is as far as I can get. That leads to guilt for not going, which depresses and frustrates me. Does Jesus know how sad I feel? How despondent it makes me? Does Jesus know the weight of my raw emotions? Does He care? Does He know that the feelings He freely showed have been blunted since 1968? Does He know that pleasure is an all-or-nothing proposition--for me, nothing, and that I cannot experience or show compassion like He did on earth?

I was in church on Sunday listening to the pastor's sermon on Matthew 9:35ff.

Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. 36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He *said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

10:1 Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. . . . 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

Later that afternoon, the Spirit showed me my lack of compassion and why. I have more compassion for abused animals than I do for abused humans. I haven't had sympathy for people made in the image of God since 1968, perhaps before, but definitely since 1968. I've been emotionally numb all these decades. That also explains a lot of my actions and reactions to people. I know obedience, well, sin-corrupted obedience.

The pastor spoke about obeying Jesus out of compassion toward hurting souls. But the Holy Spirit revealed to me that I possessed none. I envisioned things I could do for others, but not from compassion. I felt empty and useless. I have to go back and see how I ended up in a year of combat so that any pity I might have had toward other humans would vanish. Was I unlucky? No. God eternally decreed for me to be born so that when I left high school, a war in SE Asia would rage, consuming nations and peoples whole. He planned an eternity ago that I would want to join the military- the Marine Corps- be assigned to a particular Marine line company, and end up at Khe Sanh et al. I had it worse than some and not as bad as others. Interestingly, He oversaw every circumstance that would rob me of compassion toward my fellow man, especially the ones trying to kill me. Hate comes readily to mind. And then He saved my, ahem, sorry keister. God delights in using vessels that He has emptied. He must really like me.

The Father, through the Son, says, "Go!" He shows me Christ's mercy toward lost and hurting humanity. The pastor mainly spoke to "normal" Christians, not to people like me whose compassion was drained by terrible circumstances. I may go to my grave vacant of any compassion toward others. Until then, I act toward hurting souls from objective obedience to Jesus. Fine. I can't manufacture what only God can produce. But. Jesus showed me His compassion, which is the passage's point. HE is compassionate. Through the Spirit, Matthew isn't putting me on a guilt trip. He's presenting Jesus to guys like me, void of the essentials of the Christian faith, and He, having gone before, says, "Follow Me" as any good Company Commander does. And when the CO gets cut down, as Jesus was, He sends His Spirit to do what I am hopeless to accomplish through me.

I go because the Spirit sends me forth, not because I have compassion for the lost, but because the Spirit is the hope of glory in me.