Is Compassion Harmful?

The most shocking and painful thing for me to learn in Graduate School was that helping often does more harm than good. The longer I am training Christians to care and counsel the more people I see who are harmed by compassionate people.

And, the greater the compassion the greater the harm.

Why? Because overly compassionate people cannot stand to see others in pain and react too quickly to relieve their suffering.

We see a poor man on the street begging for  money to "buy food" and we give them Five Dollars. Come to find out the man is an addict and he immediately spends the money on alcohol. He is still in the cycle of chronic poverty. He has money but it is spent on harmful substances not to invest in positive activities.

Do you give emotionally to an emotional appeal?

Do you follow up to see if a person used the money in a positive manner?