compassione.

Sinners' Friend,  by Watchman Nee

A Lady once said, “I have many things which are hard to overcome and many things in which I have failed. Eventually, I sought help from those believers in church who were better than I. But they did not understand my problem. It seems that they were born ‘holy persons,’ and they had never felt the annoyance of failures.” This shows that a person without experience cannot sympathize with others.

Why did our Lord not descend from heaven as a grown-up? Why did He have to come through a virgin’s womb? Why did He have to be nursed, nurtured, and grow gradually? Why did He have to pass through thirty-three years of suffering on this earth? Why was He not crucified three days after He was born on the earth to accomplish His work of redemption?

Oh, the reason He was willing to submit to all kinds of limitation and suffer every affliction was that He wanted to sympathize with us. He learned the principles of human living. He was misunderstood and persecuted. He was stripped, mistreated, and forsaken by people.

Eventually, He was crucified on the cross. He endured all these sufferings in order to experience the bitter taste of human life and sympathize with man’s weaknesses. His thirty-three years of human living and His preaching during the three years were not only to accomplish His mission and work, but also for the sake of sympathizing with us. He had to do this before He could sympathize with our weaknesses.

If there is a broken or wounded heart here today, the Lord is right now feeling what you feel. He knows your afflictions. Not only does He have the grace to save you, but He has a heart that sympathizes with you and feels your feelings.

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help.”

Many times we feel that others do not consider our problems to be important and that no one can sympathize with us, comfort us, or help us. At these times, we surely feel how heavy our burden is and how much our suffering is. But there is One in heaven who sympathizes with us. We can come boldly to the throne of grace to beseech Him.

In heaven, there is One who sympathizes with us and has mercy on us; He feels our burden. He will make our burden light. At times, friends on earth may lighten our burden, but this Friend in heaven is always ready to bear our burden. He not only bears our burden in feeling, but in reality as well. He sympathizes with us, and He is gracious to us. It is as though we are the only ones He loves. He is only concerned about our affairs. He is such a Lord! Thank and praise God! We have such a Lord!