Your flight is running late. Your connecting flight leaves soon. As the plane approaches the gate, you wonder whether the passengers ahead of you will let you off first.
Good luck.
Writing for Inc.com, Justin Bariso recounted an experience Kathrin Peters shared about a delayed Delta flight into Salt Lake City.
The flight attendant asked the passengers to raise their hands if this was their final destination. Most hands went up.
Then he asked them to imagine the anxiety they would feel if they had to catch another flight and weren’t sure they would make it. Next, he asked those who had connecting flights to raise their hands.
The flight attendant asked everyone to remain seated except those who had connections, allowing them to deplane first and make their flights.
“If we all play our part, they can make it,” he said. “Thank you so much for your consideration and help. Every one of those guys appreciates you for it.”
Peters said the energy in the cabin completely shifted.
“Everyone suddenly shared the same mission,” Peters wrote in a LinkedIn post. “We all knew who the people were that needed to hustle now. And we were all in it with them, feeling their adrenaline in our veins.”
When the plane landed, only connecting passengers stood up. Others helped them with their bags. Afterward, the remaining passengers patiently got up, grabbed their things, and exited calmly.
“The whole plane was rooting for them,” Peters said.
Peters’s story reminds us of the importance of human connection, caring about others, feeling empathy for even a stranger’s plight, and lending a hand to someone in need.
The Bible teaches empathy by commanding us to share others’ joys and sorrows, show compassion, and treat people with kindness. Consider these three passages:
Romans 12:15
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”1 Peter 3:8
“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”Ephesians 4:32
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
In Philippians 2:3–4, the apostle Paul cuts to the heart of the matter, calling us to subdue selfish desires and really care about the needs of others.
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Interestingly, Paul then connects this concern for others to having the attitude of Christ—the epitome of selflessness, sacrifice, and service (v. 5).
Empathy, however, must move beyond a mere feeling. Psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman describe three types of empathy:
#1 Cognitive empathy: the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings.
#2 Emotional empathy: the ability to share or relate to those feelings.
#3 Compassionate empathy, or empathic concern: understanding another person’s feelings and being moved to help.
Compassionate empathy is empathy in action. It is loving, as the apostle John put it, not just “with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).
The flight attendant in Peters’s story provided the incentive and the means for people to practice empathy and show compassion for fellow travelers they’d never met and might never see again.
How many occasions do we have each day to demonstrate, in our attitudes and actions, empathic concern for fellow travelers on life’s highway?
- Being kind to a cashier who makes a mistake at McDonald’s.
- Letting someone with only two items go ahead of us at the grocery store when we have a full cart.
- Allowing a driver who has gotten into the wrong lane to merge ahead of us.
- Helping a friend with a task when they’re overwhelmed with the amount of work to do.
- Opening the door for a delivery man who has his hands full.
- Listening patiently when someone needs to talk about a burden, without immediately offering advice.
- Responding gently to an irritable person, realizing they may be carrying a burden we cannot see.
- Taking a meal to a family dealing with illness, grief, or exhaustion.
- Sitting beside someone at church who is alone and including them in the conversation.
- Giving a young parent an encouraging smile when their child becomes restless during worship.
- Offering a ride to an older person who no longer feels comfortable driving.
- Checking on someone who has suffered a loss, even weeks after others have resumed their normal routines.
- Being patient with someone who struggles to find the right words or takes longer to complete a task.
- Offering to stay with a loved one so a weary caregiver can have a break.
- Asking someone who seems unusually quiet, “How are you really doing?”—and taking time to hear the answer.
Empathy asks, “What might this person be feeling—and what can I do to help?”
Jesus summed up the matter of empathy well in what we call the Golden Rule:
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).
–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman
