So, is God compassionate? I used to wonder.

When I was younger, a few experiences culminated to become my understanding of who God was. However lopsided it ended up being, these experiences informed my decisions about whether I wanted to know Him. When I was younger, I believed God was angry (at me) and vengeful (toward me), imposing expectations that I could never meet but would only leave Him disappointed. I thought His love was conditional, half-hearted, given to some and withheld from others. I believed I was the latter. Sufficient to say, at the time, I didn’t want to follow Him. I didn’t want to take time to get to know Him.

For those of us who didn’t grow up with an accurate view of God, there’s a lot to sift through. There’s what we’ve been told. What we’ve observed. What we’ve experienced. It can be hard to make sense of it all.

Along the way, there were a few people I met who shined with the radiance of Jesus. I couldn’t articulate it back then, but seeing the way they lived and the way they loved, I noticed they had something that I didn’t (and that I wanted).

Over time, I began to wonder if that “thing” had anything to do with their faith. It seemed confusing. How could their God, who they claimed to be good, be the same one who had forsaken me? How could the God who turned me inward on myself in shame and bitterness make them soft and kind?

I thought it was too late for me, fate sealed. I thought I had strayed too far. What did it even mean to follow Jesus anyway? I thought I was never His, so how could I be now? I thought, I thought, I thought.

In college, I found myself in a season of searching and wrestling and trying to find. Of believing one thing and wanting to believe another. I was afraid to believe in the goodness of God because what if what if what if?

What if they’re wrong?

What if He lets me down?

What if He doesn’t turn out to be who He says He is?

What if He isn’t actually good? What if He is, but I’m not good enough?

What if He changes His mind?

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These fears (lies) flooded my mind as I tried to bridge the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. I wanted to believe God was good, loving, kind, just, merciful, compassionate, and all the other things He has claimed to be. But, all these statements and promises were clashing with what I believed to be true all the prior years of my life.

I didn’t know how to reconcile the space between.

I still thought God was quick with His anger, instead of slow to it. I thought I was being punished. That if God was out there, He wasn’t good. Or that if He was, I wasn’t good enough.

Our thought lives are powerful. Not always are they honest.

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Seek & You Will Find

In my season of searching, I heard someone repeat that scripture back to me that says if you seek, you’ll find. I wanted to find him. I wanted to know once and for all what He was like, and whether He was someone I wanted to know. I wanted to know who was right: me, or them?

So, I started reading the gospels. If there was someone who was love embodied, I thought, I want to know him.

Maybe it was any other gloomy Tuesday of my freshmen year of college, nestled in the corner spot of my favorite coffee shop in Seattle’s U District, or maybe I was somewhere else. I can’t recall the exact place where this story began to unfold, but I do remember the feeling of opening the Bible the first few times.

I remember how vulnerable it was, considering the possibility that God was indeed beautiful and loving and kind.

As my eyes poured across the pages of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, I came to see Jesus. The one who made God known. The miracles he performed, the way he was patient with those who followed him, the way he drew near to the outcasts and the sinners. The forsaken ones. Those who’d been left behind – they weren’t forgotten by Jesus. They were the very ones he came for. I discovered Jesus and his heart in the way he lingered in the presence of those who were hurting. The truth he would speak over their identity and their situation. The hope he would bring. Every time, people left these encounters with him forever changed.

Blind men, now seeing.

Lame men, now walking.

Deaf and mute, now speaking.

Brokenhearted people, whole again.

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The Lord, The Lord, Compassionate & Merciful

The observations that turned my lopsided view of God upright again were the accounts of his heart in action where I could witness his wholehearted compassion for the weary and heavy-laden ones. All throughout the pages of the bible, God’s compassion is on display. It articulates the depths of his heart, and contextualizes the love you find in it when you see how this mercy manifested compels him toward the hurting and the broken. It’s the thing that moves him, the thing that moves us.

In Exodus 34:6-7, as the Lord passes before Moses and tells him who He is, the first thing He says about Himself is that He’s compassionate. One of the first things God wants us to know about Him is that He is deeply stirred by our cries for help. From the greatest depths of God’s being, He is merciful and compassionate. It is in fact His first posture toward us – this is what Exodus 34 teaches us. That doesn’t mean He’s soft on sin, or that He isn’t holy.

But God’s heart is His heart. It speaks for itself.

This Hebrew word, rakhum, appears in Exodus 34 and in 45 other Old Testament scriptures. It is the word we translate as compassion, tender love, and mercy. It’s an emotional one, sometimes even translated as deeply stirred because it prompts a response from the greatest depths of God. Rakhum is also closely tied to the Hebrew word for womb: rekhem, suggesting that God’s compassion for His children is like that of a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15-16). In Psalm 103:13-14, it says Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he himself knows our frame; he is mindful that we are but dust.

In the New Testament, there are two words in Greek that are used to describe Christ’s compassion: oiktirmos and slpagchnon. “The first refers to actions of compassion or pity, and the second refers to your guts…tied into the idea of the womb” (Bible Project). This is the thing about Jesus that softened my heart because it was the very thing I was wrong about. This was not the God I thought I knew. This was a God who was kind, slow to anger, and compelled by mercy.

I had never been so glad for being wrong.

The Greek word splagchnizomai is used 12 times. When the multitudes come together to hear Jesus teach, when two blind men cry out begging for Jesus’ mercy, when parents of sick and lost children weep, when a prodigal son returns home to his father’s house – this is the word used to describe Christ’s response.

He has compassion. He is moved to respond to our vulnerability by teaching, healing, seeing, and restoring. He recognizes our vulnerabilities, and it draws him toward us in love.

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Compassion Comes From the Gut

Compassion is something you feel in the greatest depths of you, that you can’t help but feel as you see someone in a vulnerable position. It wells up in us as our heart breaks, as we grieve, as we see someone we love go through tragedy or illness. Compassion is the thing inside of us that makes us ache for God’s kingdom to come. That makes us cry out at the brokenness and pain in this world thinking, this is not how it was supposed to be.

When innocent life is lost. When dignity is stolen from image-bearers. When addiction ravages the life of people we love. When anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts try to steal the joy from our brothers and sisters. Compassion overflows as we confront the reality of living in a fallen and broken world, thinking this is not how it was supposed to be.

When we respond with compassion and mercy, we are emulating Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. We are becoming wounded healers, in Jesus’ name, allowing his kingdom to come through us. And yet, 80% of the time these words, meaning compassionate, explain a person, that person is God.

This is what flows from His heart. This is what He means when He says He is Love. His is a posture inclined toward the cries of His children, not away. Knowing this helps us remember who He is, so that we can be confident as we approach God’s throne of grace. Why?

Because we know the One who sits upon it. We know the One who is listening. We know that He is deeply stirred by our prayers and by our praises.

When God says He’s compassionate, He means that He remembers us. He is turned toward us. He is deeply stirred by the songs of our heart and the cries of our soul.

When you think of God, is compassionate something that comes to mind?

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Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

As Jesus and his disciples gather together after a long period of going out and healing people, casting out demons, baptizing people, etc, Jesus suggests they go to a solitary place for a while to recover. He leads his followers into a boat. They cast away, and upon reaching the other shore, heaps of people stand there, waiting for them. They came running when they heard where Jesus would be. Despite their tired eyes, and instead of telling the crowds to come back later when Jesus and his disciples were all more rested, Jesus had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34).

He gathered them together, and tended to their needs.

After that, Jesus went on to perform the great miracle of feeding the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish. When Jesus sees desperation, passion, hunger and thirst for what he has to offer, and when he sees people seeking him out in faith, he honors that. He never leaves us empty handed.

Upon seeing the multitudes that day, Jesus responded in the way he always has and always will. He faithfully taught and healed and restored and provided. Like a father to his son, the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. So it was with them. So it is with us.

Christ recognizes weary souls, and it moves him to act. Not just that one time, or two or three or four, but every single time.

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Christ Enters Into Our Suffering

The greatest depiction of God’s compassion is Christ entering in to bear our sin and suffering, so that we could have a great high priest who is able to empathize with our weaknesses, tempted in every way yet did not sin, who leans in with grace and mercy in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

He chose not to escape death, but to defeat it, so that we may know once and for all ours is a God who draws near. Who enters in. Who is not afraid of our pain and our honesty, but knows the very depths of it. The cross is the final display of Christ’s compassion, the memory of which we can call upon in our greatest need.

Compassion kept Jesus on the cross that day.

In our desperation, God is moved toward us with lovingkindness. Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection is evidence of this. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). In all Christ’s holiness, purity, and perfection, it would seem our sin and brokenness would repel Jesus, but it’s actually the very thing that draws him close. He can’t help but draw near to us in the name of restoring and redeeming all things back under His authority, power, and dominion here on earth.

As you read through the gospels, time and time again you see Jesus drawing near to those in need. It’s his very nature to see, touch, hear, heal, and restore weary and wandering souls. Where we would expect him to turn away in disgust at humanity’s uncleanness, impurity, and unholiness, and sin, instead we see him draw near so his holiness can flow to us.

Instead of dirtying him, He makes us clean and whole again.

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Throughout the gospels, we witness the very depth of Christ’s heart. His compassion. His mercy. His healing power. His holiness. His purity. His beauty.

Those years ago, sitting in a coffee shop on a rainy Seattle day, in the bedroom of my sorority house, or somewhere else in my little corner of the world, getting to know Jesus only made me want to know him deeper. I caught a glimpse of his heart and his character, and it made me come undone. Somehow, I knew in those months I was only scratching the surface. I realized there wasn’t anything I had to offer the Lord that made me worthy, other than to simply recognize my need and how He could fill it.

So, I cried out to Him and prayed to Him and He listened. He was moved by the cries of my heart, and I was moved by His gentleness and lovingkindness toward me.

My question how could it be? turned into a praise be because I finally saw the One who saw me.

I finally believed He was who He said He was. I believed He was compassionate, merciful, gentle, kind, just, filled with grace, and so much more. This changed everything.

Since then, I’ve learned the narrow way is much the same in the end as it is in the beginning. We seek and we find and we do that over and over again, so that we may love Him and honor Him and follow Him and know Him deeper. We spend our whole lives fighting the urge to forget, and instead to remember who He is and how He’s been faithful. To remember, even as guilt and shame try to write a different story, that God has compassion for His children.

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Same God Then. Same Heart Now.

The same heart that drew near to the hurting and brokenness of the lepers, the deaf, the mute, the blind, the adulterers, the drunks, the bitter and the hard of heart beats for you and me. That heart transforms us. It keeps us. It carries us. It anchors us.

Out of that heart, Christ’s heart, flows compassion and mercy to all who are weary and heavy-laden.

I was a sheep without a shepherd. I was lost, but then I was found.

This is the testimony of the five thousand, the prodigal son, the Samaritan woman at the well.

This is my testimony. And it’s yours, too.

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In Jeremiah 29, after God declares He has a plan to prosper His people and not to harm them, to give them a hope and a future, He too declares that as we call upon Him and come and pray to Him, He will hear us. He will listen.

Be encouraged. To be a recipient of God’s compassion is to be a weary soul in this broken and hurting world. There’s no earning it, or deserving it. There’s no making sense of it. God simply would not be God without it.

Trust that when you call upon God and you come and pray to Him, He will listen. He will hear you. This doesn’t mean God will always answer in the way you expect or hope He would. In James 1, it’s clear that He responds when we act in faith. But, what this does mean is we are never left empty handed.

When we peel back the layers of Jesus, we find love. We find compassion. We find mercy. We find patience in anger. We find a hunger for justice, restoration, peace, and wholeness. We find a deep desire for relationship and intimacy with His children. Remember that God so loved the world that He sent His son.

Because of love, Christ draws near. He moves toward us. He is not afraid of our sin and brokenness, but he does want more for us than our worst mistakes and deepest sorrows. This is why he heals, restores, touches, and reaches out to the weary and the broken. He wants to make us whole again. To be clean. Restored. Renewed. Healed. Filled with hope and peace.

It is the deep stirring of compassion that compels Him to act in the first place. To approach the woman who’s being accused of adultery, about to be stoned to death. To stop along the long journey in a busy crowd to restore the sight of two blind men. To see the desperation in the eyes of afraid mothers and fathers as their children lay upon their death beds and choose to heal them.

Compassion opens the door to the miracle.

It wells up from the deepest parts of Christ, and inclines him to respond. To open the door. To stop in the crowd. To speak. To listen. To hear. To see. To restore.

So, be encouraged. Christ’s natural disposition toward you is mercy. Whether or not you believe that, it’s true.

You have not strayed too far. You have not made too many mistakes.

It has not been too long. Your fate has not been sealed.

Whether it’s been 2 minutes or 12 years, the invitation is the same.

Come to him. Call upon him. He hears you.

Christ’s heart is his heart.

You can’t taint it. You can’t change it. But he can change you.