A young man is changing his tire on the side of the road and gets struck by a car--he dies later at the hospital. A quiet evening in a house is destroyed when a stray bullet strikes the father dead in his chair. A motorcyclist dies in a terrible crash. For the families, their hearts our broken. And we feel compassion for them.

Compassion is really the only thing we can offer these people. We cannot promise to make things better for them. We cannot promise to bring loved ones back. We cannot promise them it won’t hurt. But we can share compassion.

"When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things." (Mark 6:34)

If these tough and tragic deaths remind us of anything it is that the people in our lives need true compassion. There are people who don’t know their Savior, who walk around with a darkness, an emptiness, inside them that this world doesn’t fill. These are the people for whom Christ died, people like you and me, people we can share compassion with. And the kind of compassion that you and I can share is very different from the kind of compassion the world offers. Our compassion is the compassion of Christ. That selfless love of Christ, who loved us when we didn’t deserve it, is the source of our own compassion. And that love that knows no limits can stretch out through our lives so we can share compassion, too.

So when we raise our eyes and see the people in this world who don’t know Christ, then it is time to share Christ’s compassion. The compassion of Christ is really the only thing we can give, because it is the only thing that can save.