But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, Matthew 5:44 (NKJV)

We are called to love other believers, and we are even called to love our enemies. God expects His children to walk in love. One aspect of having a genuine love walk is empathy.

Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy means you feel sorry for someone. Empathy means you go a step beyond that and put yourself in the other person’s shoes, attempting to see from their perspective and feel what they are feeling. According to Merriam-Webster.com, the definition of empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.

When we are full of the love of God, we are empathetic people. In other words, we seek to know how the other person is feeling and understand their motives rather than jumping to conclusions that would make us angry or resentful towards them. When we are hurt in some way by how someone treated us, we can step back and seek God as to what prompted them to do what they did to us. Often, He will show us, and we are able to more easily forgive them and move on. We might even be able to reach out in compassion to them and display God’s love to them, rather than responding to them in anger. When people act selfishly, such as being inconsiderate while driving, we can avoid exhibiting road rage and instead try to empathize and determine why they did what they did. Maybe it was a simple oversight or something tragic in their life has distracted them. Rather than assuming they did it on purpose, let’s walk in the love of God by showing empathy.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7 (NKJV) emphasis mine

If we were look at this passage from I Corinthians 13, especially the part’s I’ve highlighted in bold, we could paraphrase and summarize those parts to say “Love thinks the best.” How often when we are wronged, do we assume the worst about the people involved? Probably more times than we’d like to admit. But, when we are walking in the love of God, we seek to understand the other person’s viewpoint and choose to think the best about them. Even if we are wrong, and they purposely tried to harm us, thinking the best will keep us in peace and will not allow the enemy to hinder our walk with the Lord. God will defend us, and He will show us if we need to do anything to prevent future harm from coming to us. We can be wise yet walk in love.

When we exhibit empathy, we are showing forth evidence that we are walking with the Lord. Empathy itself is proof of our love walk.