A God Who Sympathizes
“As a father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and sometimes those original words reveal layers of meaning we might otherwise miss. The original Hebrew word for “frame” used in the verse above means just that, but it is also a homonym meaning “to be in distress,” or “to be frustrated.” I love what this reveals about the heart of our Father.
These two verses in Psalms remind us that God shows us compassion because a) He know how we were formed, remembering that we are finite, and b) as humans, He knows that we will inevitably experience distress and frustration.
In short, the Lord is sympathetic to our difficulties.
He doesn’t expect us to have everything figured out. He doesn’t expect us to get it right every time. He doesn’t expect us to be happy-go-lucky all day every day. God knows we’ll get upset, angry, frustrated, and saddened. He knows we’ll mess up. He knows we’ll make mistakes. That doesn’t stop Him from loving us, and even more amazing, He knows how we feel.
“For we do not have a high priest [Jesus] who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
I believe one of the reasons the Lord came down to us in flesh was to prove to us that He knows how difficult life on this earth can be. Isaiah 53:3 tells us that Jesus was “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Jesus was born into poverty, birthed in a stable. He may have been part of a family that didn’t have great social standing, due to the possibility that it was known that Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ real father. If that’s the case, I bet people talked; Jesus may very well have been considered an illegitimate child, and I’m sure society wasn’t kind about that.
Jesus experienced the loss of loved ones, something we all go through. He lost His earthly father Joseph, who presumably died some time before Jesus’ ministry started. We know He lost His cousin, John the Baptist, who was wrongfully imprisoned before being cruelly beheaded. When Jesus began His ministry, His own family was embarrassed by Him and tried to stop His teaching, saying He was out of his mind (see Mark 3:21). He was even run out of His hometown (see Luke 4:16-30; Matthew 13:54-58; and Mark 6:1-6).
Throughout His ministry, Jesus was mistreated, doubted, mocked, ridiculed, scorned, laughed at, misunderstood, and even abandoned by His closest friends. We know from scripture that Jesus felt lonely at times, as well as angry, frustrated, and saddened. But He went through everything He did, experienced everything we do, because He loves us.
Because of His great love for us and His desire to save us, Jesus died a gruesome and physically excruciating death. He did this to give us the opportunity to return to the kind of life He intended for us from the beginning, a life of complete peace in relationship with God. In the process of His death and Resurrection, Jesus gave us full access to God the Father, who promises never to leave us, or forsake us (see Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5). Even in our daily frustrations of being human, He knows, He sees, and He cares. So the next time we feel frustrated about life, we can take solace in the fact that we are not alone in it, nor do we have a God who can’t relate. He knows us, and remembers.
Let’s pray together.Lord, thank You for being a caring God. Help us to remember that You are not a God who stands far off, or one who is apathetic to our emotions or hardships. You walked on this earth, experienced life as a human being, and showed us that You know what our lives are like, complete with the sorrows, pains and turmoil that we face. We thank You for facing them with us. We thank You for not abandoning us in our pain, but drawing close to us during hard times. Your Word even tell us in Psalm 48:18 that You are close to the brokenhearted and that You save those who are crushed in spirit. You see us, and You care about us. Thank You for remembering what we are, and for being Who we need You to be in every instance. Help us to remember and believe this, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
