The Real Problem: Misplaced Compassion (1 of 2)

We have spent considerable time on the institutional structures that mediate access to God. But the structures would never have taken root if they had not answered a genuine emotional and spiritual need. That need is this: we do not want to be confronted with our own poverty of spirit. We do not want to hit bottom. We do not want to face our spiritual bankruptcy. And so we accept - gratefully, even - a system that will manage our relationship with God, that will handle the hard parts, that will tell us we are okay as long as we follow the instructions. Institutions provide that comfort. But there is another force that operates at the personal level, and it is in some ways even more destructive: misplaced compassion.

Misplaced compassion is help that prevents transformation. It is kindness that enables continuing sin. It is love that rescues someone from the consequences they need to experience in order to change. It operates in families, in churches, in relationships of all kinds. And it is often the primary tool the adversary uses to abort spiritual transformation.

Consider a concrete case. A mother and her adult daughter. The daughter has made poor choices - relational, financial, spiritual choices. The daughter is suffering consequences. Real consequences. The kind of consequences that, if allowed to fully land, would drive the daughter to poverty of spirit, to the recognition that she cannot save herself, that she needs God, that she needs to change. This is the Kingdom's entry condition. This is the prerequisite for transformation.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

— Matthew 5:3 (NET)

But the mother cannot bear to watch her daughter suffer. The mother loves her daughter. The mother wants to help. So the mother steps in. The mother provides money when the daughter is financially struggling. The mother offers a place to stay when the daughter's relationships fail. The mother listens sympathetically when the daughter complains about her circumstances. The mother - motivated by genuine love, genuine concern - removes the consequences. And in removing the consequences, the mother removes the very thing that would have driven her daughter to transformation.

This is misplaced compassion. This is help that prevents transformation. And the mother cannot see it. The mother sees only the daughter's pain and her own ability to alleviate it. The mother does not see that she is actually, through her compassion, trapping her daughter in the very patterns that are destroying her. The mother is saying, in effect: "You do not have to change. I will manage the consequences. I will make sure you are comfortable enough that you never have to face the poverty of spirit that would drive you to God." And the daughter, gratefully, accepts. She gets the benefit of her choices without the cost. She stays comfortable. She never hits bottom. She never experiences the bankruptcy that would force her to seek God.

Years pass. The daughter is older. Her life is still marked by the same patterns, the same choices, the same destruction. But now she is dependent on her mother's help. She has never developed the capacity to face consequences. She has never learned to trust God with her suffering. She has never been forced to change because the suffering has never been allowed to fully land. And the mother, looking at what she has enabled, is heartbroken. But she cannot stop. If she stops helping, the daughter will suffer. If she stops providing, the daughter will have to change. And the mother's compassion - distorted, misdirected, but still genuine compassion - will not allow her to do the hard thing.

This is the pattern that Jesus did not follow. When Jesus encountered the woman at the well, He did not offer her comfort. He offered her conviction. You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. He named her sin. He held the standard. But He held it in the context of an offer:

"But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life."

— John 4:14 (NET)

Conviction plus love. He did not remove her need to face her own poverty. He deepened it. And in deepening it, He opened the way to transformation.