Day 83 The God who Feels

Have you ever wondered what God feels, and what that's like for Him? To some people that's a ridiculous question with an obvious answer. But for me it hasn’t always been so clear.... I know the correct theological answer because I have spent years in formal and informal study of the Bible. But understanding the answer to these questions is another thing.

I was leaving downtown to head back to the safety of my home one night when God showed up...in the form of a drunk. He was in the alley where my car was parked, stumbling up the street in no particular direction.

The old man was very dirty, very drunk, and very lost. I stared at him as I fumbled with my keys trying to find the lock on my car door. What happened next took me completely by surprise… I started to cry.

As I stared at this miserable drunken man, I was overwhelmed with God’s heart of love and grief for this poor lost soul. In one instant I felt the weight of God’s love for this man and His compassion towards his plight. And I wept…uncontrollably…sobbing. I could not stop crying as I felt the heart of God shattered for a wasted life…. A man, made in the image of God, barely recognizable as God’s creation, yet loved with a perfect love by the One who formed him as a baby in his mother’s womb.

I sat in my car sobbing inconsolably as he stumbled into the darkness of a hot July evening. I don’t know how long I sat there weeping but I am sure that that drunken man wasn’t the only one who needed help that night as God showed me some things about Himself that I needed to know.

Having walked out of my own share of pain and brokenness in my life, I needed to know about the God who feels…deeply…completely…with a heart of love…and compassion.

“And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…” Hebrews 1:3

This verse says that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in human form…God in the flesh. And I see in Him the God who feels deeply…completely…with a heart of love…and compassion.

How does God show compassion today? Here are examples from Jesus' life:

•  The Grieving – Luke 7:13
• The Helpless – Matthew 9:36
• The Sick – Matthew 14:14
• The Hungry – Matthew 15:32
• The Spiritually Blind – Matthew 23:37-39

An experience like this one, in a car in an alley, is an introduction to the heart of God. In a small and profound way, God shared his heart to feel the compassion He was feeling for one of His lost children.

The best way to find the heart of God is to find someone who is experiencing pain and suffering--and to be Jesus to them.