Jesus Didn’t Rationalize People’s Pain

We have a Father who’s in the business of redeeming what has been broken, and there are a lot of things that feel broken in our world right now.

Jesus didn’t rationalize people’s pain. He didn’t respond to a heart issue with his head response. When He told the story of the Good Samaritan, He didn’t say, “Well, the guy that got beat up had stolen something 12 years ago. We don’t know the full story why he was on the road.”

No. In that parable, Jesus instead models what we do when people are in pain. We reach out and meet them right where they are, with empathy.

We enter their world and we take care of them like family.We don’t judge their pain or tell them they shouldn’t be in pain. We see hurt.We respond with empathic love.

Jesus shows us this again, and again, and again. With the woman caught in adultery. With the leper. With the woman suffering from bleeding. With Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

When I have not loved like Jesus, I have missed opportunity to love the hurting in real and practical ways.

So what does love require of me? When I am tempted to respond to an emotional hurt with logical response or fact, I will pause in knowing that I am missing an opportunity to increase my understanding and to experience empathy and love.