Have you ever felt so intensely sorry for someone that you felt like you would burst with pity? Some people’s problems and predicaments, or even just their very selves, can be so sorrowful, so sorely in need of compassion and help, yet it seems that there is nothing you can do to help them.As it turns out, there is something you can do. If you are a Christian, you can pray for them. In prayer we take all our thoughts and deeds, our very identities, before God to lay them all at His feet. And it is no different with emotions. Emotions are powerful trademarks of the human family, and I cannot help but believe that such intense phenomena are not only heard by God, but understood and acted upon in some way.
Jesus knew this feeling better than any of us ever have. Mark tells us in his wonderful Gospel that Jesus’ heart “was moved with pity” for a large crowd, “for they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34). This happened to be the very same crowd for which he later multiplied the loaves and fishes. As God made human, Jesus understood pity more than we even do, as He looked out on the poor lost sheep he had created, sheep who bungle their purpose and squander their delicate but powerful lives. They needed the nourishment of Spirit and Body, and this is what He came to give them.
There’s a lesson here for those of us caught in the throes of true pity—call on the power of God to help those whom you pity. There is no greater power than God’s, and prayer is our access to Him. When we surrender such concerns to Him Who once gazed upon our ancestors with a blazing and infinite pity, we may realize yet again how much He cares for everyone, and will take care of us all in time.
“Cast your worries upon Him because He cares for you.”
+1 Peter 5:7+
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