The Father is Compassionate

By: Jenifer Metzger

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

Psalm 103:13

I have the blessing of taking care of my three grandsons while my daughters and sons work. Today my oldest grandson (3y/o) had a mustache sticker that he was walking around with. He would place it above his lip and talk in a deep voice, so cute! After awhile he had lost his sticker and was looking all around for it. For some reason he thought it might be behind the TV and he tried to look back there. However, as I walked into the kitchen, he decided to get a better look by climbing on the baby swing. It didn't end well.

Poor baby fell face first into the carpet and his tooth went into his lip. Loud screams, lots of blood, and cries for mommy resulted. I scooped him up and ran into the kitchen to begin assessing the situation. After seeing an emergency room visit wasn't necessary, we FaceTimed his mommy.

As his mommy calmed him down with her words and prayed over him, she began to tear up herself. She felt such compassion over seeing her little boy hurt. As I watched my daughter tear up, I began to feel compassion for her and teared up myself.

The little chain reaction made me think our Heavenly Father. He, too, has compassion for us. When we hurt, He hurts.

Before you ask, “Then why doesn’t He stop bad things from happening!?” let's talk about that. Sometimes the pain comes from our own mistakes; like my grandson who was climbing on something he shouldn’t have been. There are natural consequences to our actions. You drive reckless, the natural consequence you risk is a car accident. You pick up a hot pan without coverage, the natural consequence is you will get burned. So sometimes our actions have natural consequences.

Sometimes bad things happen because we live in a fallen world. A world full of sin and evil. And sometimes God does stop the bad from happening! There is so much that could happen that doesn't, so much we don't see every single day. God does stop bad from happening, but like we said, there are natural consequences and we live in a fallen world.

When the bad happens, when we feel hurt -physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual- God is compassionate toward us. Like I hurt for my daughter and my daughter hurt for her son, God hurts for us, too. So when you hurt, don't think God is distant or uncaring. He's not up in Heaven saying, "It's your own fault!" He's not laughing. He's not making us hurt. He has compassion over us. Just like a parent comforts their hurting child, just like my daughter comforted my grandson, God is waiting for us to come running to Him so He can offer comfort to us.

He sees you and He sees your pain. Lean into Him and let the Father comfort you.

Discussion:
1. Think of a time you experienced compassion toward your child or another person. Take those feelings and think on how much more compassionate God is toward us.
2. Purpose in your mind that the next time you are hurting you will turn to the Father.