Seeing God - Compassion
A God Deeply Moved
Yahweh! Yahweh!
A God compassionate and gracious!
Slow to anger, and abundant of loyal love and faithfulness
—Exodus 34:6
QUESTION #1
What thoughts and feelings come to your heart and mind when you first read this verse?
COMPASSION - An emotional word
“Compassion is an emotional word, often used to describe God’s love for his people and how his heart moves him to rescue them. Compassion is depicted as the way a parent views a child, and describes how God views his people.”
—Bible Project
RAKHUM is related to the Hebrew word REKHEM, which means “womb”:
It conveys the emotion and nurture that a mother has for her vulnerable child.
Compassion is a response to vulnerability
Compassion is originated in the core of a person — “a gut instinct or something that you feel in your inner being”.
Compassion reveals the Truth.
For example, Joseph. He was “deeply moved” when he weeps before his brothers who sold them as a slave.
Joseph could stand it no longer. There were many people in the room, and he said to his attendants, “Out, all of you!” So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. Then he broke down and wept. He wept so loudly the Egyptians could hear him, and word of it quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace. “I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers were speechless! They were stunned to realize that Joseph was standing there in front of them. “Please, come closer,” he said to them. So they came closer. And he said again, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt.
—Genesis 45:1-4
COMPASSION - An action word
“For God to have compassion on someone is often expressed as forgiveness and/or deliverance. The “object of compassion” is typically someone in a vulnerable position, where someone else has the ability to do harm or have compassion on them.”
—Bible Project
Compassion is a deep feeling that compels someone to act for another’s good.
Compassion motivates action.
Ways of manifest compassion:
- Forgiveness - Micah 7:19; Psalm 78:38; Nehemiah 9:17
- Deliverance from Suffering - Deuteronomy. 30:2-3; Isaiah 49:13; Jeremiah 30:18
- Power in Relationships - Daniel.1:9; Nehemiah.1:11
Once more Joseph is an example of compassion. He was “deeply moved” that he reveals himself to his brothers and then rescues them from starvation.
“I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. (…) But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives. This famine that has ravaged the land for two years will last five more years, and there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviser to Pharaoh—the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.
—Genesis 45:3,5-8
CONSISTENT COMPASSION
“God is emotional, but He is not capricious or moody or dramatic. He’s emotional in the best way —like a parent is deeply bonded to their child. And he is consistent in his emotion: when His children cry out, he responds.”
—Bible Project
This word often portrays God as a parent who deeply cares for His children.
Nehemiah, In a time where people just did whatever they wanted, Nehemiah prayed this:
So you handed them over to their enemies, who made them suffer. But in their time of trouble they cried to you, and you heard them from heaven. In your great mercy, you sent them liberators who rescued them from their enemies. “But as soon as they were at peace, your people again committed evil in your sight, and once more you let their enemies conquer them. Yet whenever your people turned and cried to you again for help, you listened once more from heaven. In your wonderful mercy, you rescued them many times!
— Nehemiah 9:27-28
God doesn’t resist to answer to his people cry out to Him for help. It’s God emotional bond to his people that compels Him to respond.
The Lord is like a Father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
—Psalm 103:13
We can trust God to be who He says he is—a compassionate parent—even when we are not perfect or good. God’s compassion means that He is always turned towards us, like a good parent. We can know His disposition when we cry out to Him, even if we’re turned away or are struggling. Because of His compassion, He always responds to the cries of His children. He is a God who cares deeply, emotionally and consistently.
—Bible Project
How does compassion flow, then?
It flows from:
a deep awareness, understanding and trust of who God is, who I am and my deep need of God
trust and obedience (rely on God and take steps
gratitude for what He has done for us
When we don’t have that, we’ll naturally fall into perfectionism, control, nullification of our conscious and self, self-protection, self-rejection, self-abandonment, devaluation, manipulation, judgement, moralism, legalism, and so on and on.
Basically we naturally fall in our independent life in the flesh, because of Shame. And the only way to get over it is through Vulnerability and Truth. Shame is just shame while hidden. Once exposed it looses all its power and space in us. Love and compassion are cultivated when we allow the most vulnerable places of ourselves to be known, even to us.
QUESTION #2 and #3
Do you believe, do you trust God is compassionate to you? If yes, why do we struggle so much to be compassionate to ourselves in our worst moments?
What is in our hearts that blocks us the way to embrace God’s compassion for us and for us to use it to be compassionate to ourselves?
Whatever blocks the way to embrace it, it blocks the way to be compassionate towards others.
How did God show compassion towards us?
He did it by entering into our suffering by sending Jesus. He knew the pain that Sin cause in us. He is the incarnation of God’s compassion to us. Not only that, but also by putting Jesus living inside of us. In other words, besides the fact that God keep expressing His compassion to us since ever till today, He also put the incarnated compassion in us, living in us. So we have access to it every day, time, moment and use it to ourselves and others.
QUESTION #4
How does that make you feel? What do you think about that?
Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our faith. For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible—he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned.Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.
—Hebrew 4:15-16
There are no other way. In order to be compassionate we need to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and truthful (even if it hurts); we need to allow ourselves to feel other people pain, hurt… - that’s what Jesus did and continues to do. I am not saying that we have to own other peoples struggles like if they are ours, but we can feel it and go through them with people. Compassion will allow us to feel the pain and plight of others, to see from their perspective and situation in life. It will enable us to convey a deep feeling of love and concern that moves us to meet their distresses, struggles, and needs. Again, this all flows from our understanding of who God is, and our obedience, trust in, and gratitude for what He has done for us. (Luke 10:36-37; Ephesians 4:23). Our lives must be motivated by who we are in Christ, and nothing else!
QUESTION #5, #6 and #7
When have you been felt Compassion the most?
What happens to our relationships with God and others when we are cold and uncaring because we fear pain and other peoples feelings and struggles and so on and on?
In what situation have you been failing to be compassionate?
Don’t feel overwhelmed! This is a path of growing and transformation that only God controls, as we let Him to by trusting Him. Sometimes it’s going to feel slower than others, or faster… but that’s not important. We are learning to trust and develop what we already have, that He gave us, and we do it by relying and trusting God and by taking steps into that.
If we are going to be intentional in our growth in God we need to lose control and start working to trust who God made us to be by knowing Him and know ourselves and our need of Him, rely on him and take steps into that direction.
Easily, friends and family get used to see us as we used to be in the past and not as we are today, as we grow. We grew but their understanding of us, the way they see us, didn’t follow or changed alongside of us, and that creates misunderstandings, resistance, friction, conflict…
This even happens in relationships with people who never met or dealt with in our old self (in its own flesh essence) but they met us after we became new creatures in Jesus. However, our new self in Jesus is still growing and it will grow till Jesus takes us back home.
So, that means if you see me in the same way you saw me when you met me, if your perspective, understanding of me, of who I am, didn’t grow along side my own grow and transformation, our relationship will get crippled and judgement gets in. And this works both ways because relationship is a road with two ways. The same can happen from me to you.
In who we are the Lord we still have needs, we all have, and always will have — that’s why we are part of the same body where each part helps and works in harmony and that’s why we are dependent of God and interdependent on each other — If those needs are perspective as fleshy needs from my old self, no one are going to help me or have compassion on me because no one wants to feed my flesh.
And keep in mind that this works in our relationships, between us, but also from us to ourselves, the way I see myself and relate to myself.
Practical example to help to understand it more clearly.
I am a person who needs deep conversation, connection, consistency, constancy, companionship. If someones sees that as a needy fleshy thing, the relationship will start loosing strength, depth, it will bring more hurt than pleasure, it will cause more harm than edification and growth. On my end, knowing that I have those needs in the Lord and that I can’t change who I am, and don’t even want to, my heart will soon start slowly disconnect, loosing depth, connection, intensity, intentionality with that person…
My understanding and vision of who you are can not stop, cannot ever be addicted, but it needs to follow your growth and with that keep being changed. When we do that, we are being compassion to ourselves and others. We depend on the Lord but we interdepend on each other in the Lord, not in the flesh. Can fingers move without the hand? Can a hand work properly if the wrist is broken? Can the lungs work if my nose and mouth won’t get any air?
Knowing each other needs and be compassion with each other challenges us to have our heart exposed and be challenged to grow in wisdom and truth, at His image and likeness.
In all of this there is a price to be paid. This can be a good challenge or a huge trouble. I have people in my life who refuse to accept me who I am today; they are addicted to their own addicted view of me and they don’t want to be challenged to have it changed because that will imply to have their own hearts exposed and see the truth. And then what to do? What if they all will leave us, are we still going to choose Jesus?
My God gives us wisdom to surf those situations, and compassion to keep seeing those people and ourselves through the lens of God’s character and nature, which now is ours.
Meditate on
Reflect on specific examples of ways you have interacted with/ experienced compassion in your life
How life would be different if we lived out the Truth about Compassion.
What holds you back from experiencing Compassion so that you can confront/submit it to God?
Do you trust God is compassionate to you? Why not? If yes, why do you struggle so much to be compassionate to yourselves in your worst moments.
What might be in your heart that blocks the way to embrace God’s compassion for you and to use it on yourself?
When have you felt Compassion the most for others and yourself?
What issue is in your life that would improve with more compassion?
What relationship would improve with more compassion?