Grammar of Faith
Compassion and Faith
Reflection By Robbin Brent
The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
- Exodus 34:6 (NIV)
Engaging with the theme of compassion has transformed my understanding and awareness of God’s great love and hope for us. That God is always turned toward us and always ready to respond because of God’s ever-present, unconditional, healing love.
The passage above from Exodus contain the first self-describing words God uses in the Bible. And these same words are repeated many hundreds of times throughout the Old and New Testaments. I was surprised to learn that at their root (Hebrew and Greek), these words—compassion, mercy, faithfulness, lovingkindness, goodness, forgiveness, healing, trust, and womb—all come from the same origins. The connection between some of the essential vocabulary of our faith allows us to get a sense of the awe-inspiring relational dynamism of God’s participation at every step of the way on our journey of faith.
These words are meant to be understood collectively, as strands of a wholistic, unitive relational web, much like the web of a spider. These silk weavers spin webs that are strong (some stronger than steel), life-giving, and resilient, as each strand of the web is created for a specific purpose. They spin strands to wrap the eggs of their unborn. They spin strands to anchor themselves so if they fall, they don’t fall too far. These sensitive strands sustain them by alerting them through vibration to the presence of food. The silk is their source of nourishment, protection, growth, and flourishing, just as the compassionate web of God—created out of an infinite array of strands—holds, nourishes, protects, and sustains all of creation.
Making it Personal: Do the connections between the words mentioned above expand or deepen your understanding of God’s loving compassionate presence in the world? Describe in what ways. Are there other words you would add?