Episode 109 – Feeling vs. Fixingi.fb-icon-element.fontawesome-icon.fb-icon-element-63{ color: #515151;}i.fb-icon-element.fontawesome-icon.fb-icon-element-63:hover { color: #e00400;}i.fontawesome-icon.fb-icon-element-63.icon-hover-animation-pulsate:after {-webkit-box-shadow:0 0 0 2px rgba(255,255,255,0.1), 0 0 10px 10px #333333, 0 0 0 10px rgba(255,255,255,0.5);-moz-box-shadow:0 0 0 2px rgba(255,255,255,0.1), 0 0 10px 10px #333333, 0 0 0 10px rgba(255,255,255,0.5);box-shadow: 0 0 0 2px rgba(255,255,255,0.1), 0 0 10px 10px #333333, 0 0 0 10px rgba(255,255,255,0.5);}Key Passage(s): Mark 9:14-29Life can be gut-wrenching. And when the bottom falls out, we need people who know how to hold and honor our pain. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to respond well to the feeling of pain for others. In this episode we explore Jesus’s response to a desperate situation in Mark 9. His first impulse wasn’t to fix the pain, but to feel the pain. And if we can emulate this in our lives, we’ll understand how to serve one another well, especially in difficult seasons.

Discussion Questions

What was your biggest takeaway from the teaching?

Have you experienced a time when someone engaged your pain with empathy and honored it well?

Why do you think our first impulse as human beings is often to try and fix things?

How would you describe the difference between sympathy and empathy?

Is there anyone in your sphere of influence right now who’s hurting and could use an empathetic presence? What’s one concrete empathetic action you could take to feel instead of fix them?

How will you begin living out the truths of this teaching this week?