The Danger of Sympathy

This past Saturday we had our second quarterly meeting of 2014 with all of our Oak Tree Project mentors and scholarship recipients. My wife Sky began the meeting by sharing her testimony with them. It was powerful! Sky was very vulnerable as she shared (you can listen to her testimony here) and they all paid close attention. After the sharing time we split into small groups and gave the students time to reflect and share. Among all the students there was shock and inspiration at how “courageous” and “brave” Sky was to open up about all of her past. In doing so she had gone completely against Korean culture, where people tend to hide everything. Some of the students began to open in their small groups about their own difficult pasts. And one of our boys who Sky mentors and hasn’t been saved yet, remarked about her sharing, “She was so brave. I know her well and I had no idea she had been through all that. Seeing her life makes me want to meet God. It makes me want to know God.” After the small group time I let Sky meet with him and personally lead him to Christ. Praise the Lord!!!

After the small group time we headed to a nice burger restaurant and ate altogether. So much more than our previous meeting, the students were all opening up and laughing and were very comfortable with all the mentors. It was a sweet time. We then went to a bowling alley nearby and played a couple games together. Most of the students had never bowled before and were a little timid at first, but we gave them some tips and more than that gave them a lot of enthusiastic cheering and high fives. They all ended up loving it! It was a really blessed bonding time, and we were pleased to see the students getting to know each other more as well. My team ended up losing to the other, so I purchased ice cream for the winning team (and my team too, of course^^). It was a special time. Psalm 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely into families.” We were seeing that happen throughout our time together.

Finally, after that wonderful day together, I had to meet separately with four of our students to drop them from receiving the scholarship. Ironically, this included the boy who just got saved that day. For our scholarship program, we set a requirement that students must get a GPA of 3.0 out of 4.5 (like a 2.7 in America) or else they will be dropped. Before entering the program we explained this clearly to the students and had them sign the contract.

At the end of last year we showed a lot of leniency to three of our boys. Two of them got under a 3.0, but we decided to show them grace for a semester. The other boy had seen his GPA drop from 3.8 to 3.3. The purpose of our scholarship is to provide enough money for the students to not have to work part time and instead focus on their studies and succeed. Sadly, for some of the students, they took it for granted and just tried to get by, but then ended up with a GPA lower than expected. The same three boys that we had warned strongly the previous semester but had shown “grace” to ended up slipping even worse.

Hebrews 12:7-8 states – Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

One of the greatest dangers of sympathy is that it can encourage the poor state a person is in and exacerbate their condition. Showing too much sympathy to a hurting person can actually cause them to focus on the pain too much and be consumed by it. Sympathy can also cause people to create exceptions for the person they are sympathizing with, and these exceptions can actually affirm the poor condition rather than call them higher.

“God sets the lonely in families.” While a father may have sympathy for his child at times, he would never let his child remain in a pitiful condition. Rather, the father will encourage, counsel, and discipline his child into a place of strength. If the orphans are truly set into a family, then they need the discipline. Without the discipline they remain “illegitimate children and not true sons.”

So for these four students we gave them two options: Either they can continue with the mentorship program for the next semester (while not receiving the scholarship money) and work hard and get their GPA back up and begin receiving the scholarship again at the end of the year, or they can be freed from the responsibilities of the program by dropping it altogether. I emphasized to each boy (met with each separately) how much we care for them and believe in them and that we desire for them to take the first choice and remain in the family. For one of the new boys to the program who has strong orphan tendencies, at the end of our meeting I looked him in the eyes and in love said, “Don’t run away.”

Each boy had been so nervous for the meeting with me, especially the last one. But because of the faithfulness of the mentors in the program and because of our quality bonding time, they were able to know and trust my heart. Even that last boy smiled as I gave him a hug goodbye. The love from the program clearly now outweighed the scholarship money in importance.

Our desire in this program is not to coddle these students or care for their every need. If we do that then they will be completely unprepared for life after they graduate from college. Instead, we want to see these students called higher, rooted in the storms and risen high above them, inspiring other orphans around them.

Sympathy is healthy for those experiencing temporary pain, but in the long run it is love through exhortation, vision, and discipline that will enable others to fly higher.

 

***This blog post was taken from the July newsletter (prayer e-mail) sent to prayer supporters for Oak Tree Project. If you would like to receive the monthly prayer update from Oak Tree Project, then please e-mail us at otpkorea@gmail.com.