Become An Empathetic Person

“All of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.” (1 Peter 3:8 NIV)

We’re never going to live in harmony with our wife, our husband, our friends, or anybody else without empathy. You can’t have a team without being aware of what’s happening in each other’s lives. That’s why when people work together in an office, they may do work together, but they’re not a team unless they know what’s going on in each other’s lives.  Empathy is going so important,  it meets two of our deepest needs: the fundamental need to be understood and a deep need to have our feelings validated.  If we’re going to build a team of friends or at work or in our small group, we have to build empathy into the structure. So how do we become an empathetic person?
1. Slow down. Because our culture teaches us to move fast, we end up relationally skimming. That means we’re hitting the high points and missing all kinds of details in the lives of people we care about most. James 1:19 says, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry” (NLT).
2. Ask questions. Proverbs 20:5 says, “A person’s thoughts are like water in a deep well, but someone with insight can draw them out”(GNT). Most people hold their emotions pretty close, and they don’t automatically share how they’re doing, here’s how we draw out a more telling response: Learn to ask the question, and the other thing we do is learn to linger, that means don’t be afraid of silence. Just be in the moment, ask the question, and don’t be afraid to sit there and wait. Don’t immediately go into our agenda. Just listen and learn, that’s how we develop empathy.
3. Show emotions. The Bible says in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (NASB). Empathy is more than saying, “I’m sorry you hurt.” It’s saying, “I hurt with you.”   We’re willing to cry with them, and we’re willing to rejoice with them. There’s only one way we’re going to be that empathetic; stay filled up with God. If our tank gets low on God, we’re not going to be empathetic at all. We’ve got to stay filled up with God.
Hallelujah, God bless