Willing to Be Disturbed

Two days ago, I returned home from Bali.

I’ve been several times before. The first was in 2012 when I met Paulus Wiratno. I went back in 2014 to work on a book with him and took my mom along for the journey. In 2015, I returned for a book launch, and that trip became even more meaningful when Laura and I got engaged there.

But this trip was different.

This time, I got to take my 7-year-old son, George.

I spoke at a leadership conference, spent time with remarkable leaders, and experienced some incredible things. But my favorite moment was taking George to one of the orphanages Paulus serves.

As I watched George interact with those children, I found myself hoping something deeper was being planted in him. Not just gratitude. Not just perspective. But compassion.

The kind of compassion that changes the way you live.

For nearly 15 years, Paulus has been teaching me what real compassion looks like. He’s a pastor who labors tirelessly to care for orphans, rescue victims of human trafficking, and share the Gospel with millions of people across Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world. I had the privilege of helping write The Lepers’ Lessons with him, but more importantly, I’ve had the opportunity to watch his life up close.

And one sentence from Paulus continues to challenge me:

“Compassion means you’re willing to be disturbed.”

That sentence sounds inspiring until your life is the one being disturbed.

Because here’s the truth: you can serve people without actually being compassionate.

You can volunteer.
You can donate.
You can post about causes online.
You can even build an entire reputation around helping people.

And still never allow your own comfort to be disrupted.

If our generosity is only convenient, scheduled, and controlled, it may not be compassion at all. Sometimes it’s simply obligation. Sometimes it’s guilt. Sometimes it’s image management.

True compassion costs something.

True compassion allows another person’s pain to interrupt your preferences.

Over the years, I’ve realized compassion tends to disturb us in three specific areas:

Compassion disturbs your schedule

Real compassion is rarely convenient.

It’s stopping for the person stranded on the side of the road when you’re already running late.
It’s sitting down with someone who needs to talk when your inbox is overflowing.
It’s noticing the hurting person everyone else walks past because they don’t fit neatly into your agenda.

Compassion rarely asks, “Is this efficient?”
It asks, “Will you be available?”

Most of us want to do good things for people. We just don’t want those good things to interrupt our plans.

But love that never inconveniences us probably isn’t love yet.

Compassion disturbs your wallet

Sometimes compassion requires real financial sacrifice.

It may mean giving away money you had earmarked for yourself.
It may mean changing your lifestyle so someone else can have a chance at theirs.
It may mean choosing generosity over accumulation.

But compassion also costs us in less obvious ways.

In business, we talk about opportunity cost. Compassion often means choosing people over productivity. It means spending time where there is no measurable return. It means doing work that will never increase your platform, your profit, or your visibility.

The world teaches us to ask: “What do I get back from this?”

Compassion asks: “What does this person need from me?”

And those are two very different ways to live.

Compassion disturbs your emotions

There’s an old phrase people sometimes use: “You’ve been cursed with a good heart.”

What they usually mean is this:
You care too much.
You feel too deeply.
You carry other people’s burdens longer than most people would.

But maybe that’s not a curse.

Maybe that’s what it means to actually be awake.

Because compassion will absolutely break your heart sometimes.

It will make you notice pain you previously ignored.
It will ruin your ability to stay emotionally detached.
It will force you to confront suffering instead of scrolling past it.

And honestly, that kind of vulnerability can feel exhausting.

So here’s the question I’ve been wrestling with since returning home from Bali: Are we truly willing to be disturbed?Most of us would say we want to be compassionate. But far fewer of us want our comfort interrupted, our schedules rearranged, our finances stretched, or our hearts broken.

I know I naturally prefer convenience.
I like control.
I like efficiency.
I like comfort.

But compassion calls us beyond all of those things.

Watching George walk through that orphanage reminded me that compassion is often caught before it’s taught. People are shaped not just by what we say, but by what we stop for. By who we notice. By what we’re willing to sacrifice for.

My prayer is that my son remembers what he saw there.
But even more than that, I hope he remembers the kind of people we’re called to become.

People who are willing to be disturbed.

Because at the end of the day, comfort has never changed the world. Compassion has.

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