"I AM": Compassion

Childbirth...
The ears of the nurses ringing from the screaming voice of the 'lady in labor'...
     "Just get that thing out of me!!!"
Then, moments later the world is at peace with the mother's gentle coos...
     "She's so precious...the most beautiful baby in the world."
It can be somewhat amusing.

For the rest of her life a mother will experience pains of a different kind, pains emerging from deep within. I suppose most people have some understanding, but no one understands like a mother. It is the pain felt when one of her little ones scrapes a knee or cuts a finger. It is not mere emotion tugging at the heart, but rather, a true inner pain that hurts along with the child's pain. Dad's can feel the same kind of pain, just not, I think, quite like a mother.

That deep-seated inner feeling that aches when your own little one is hurt is something we call compassion.

Of all the words God used to describe himself, the word compassion, or mercy, is more descriptive of his emotional involvement with humanity than any other word. With that in mind, consider a wonderful description of God's compassion toward his child, Israel, from Psalm 78. First, a little background....

God delivered the nation of Israel from Egyptian slavery through a dramatic display of miracles which ended with Israel crossing of the Red Sea on dry land. However, after only a few days, the singing and dancing of a freed nation turned into complaining.
     The people were thirsty;
     The people were hungry. 

God was angry with the people for their lack of faith. Having seen His mighty hand of deliverance they should have realized that He would also be their provider. Yet, they doubted. Their complaining continued and they ultimately sank into idolatry. Over and over the people failed so that the description was written:

     Their hearts were not loyal to him.
     They did not keep his covenant.
     --Psalm 78:37 (NLT)

Yet, in spite of their weak faith, God responded with compassion:

     Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins
        and did not destroy them all.
     Many times he held back his anger
        and did not unleash his fury!
     For he remembered that they were merely mortal,
        gone like a breath of wind that never returns.
     --Psalm 78:38-39 (NLT)

God's was compassionate when faithless Israel deserved anger and wrath. God would have been justified in destroying them for their complaining and idolatry. There was nothing they could do to redeem themselves; nothing that they could offer to make amends. There was no 'undo.' Their only chance for survival was a deep 'motherly' love that would move God to act with kindness instead of justice. They needed compassion.


And God responded with compassion. It is tempting to say that He responded 'in spite of' their weakness, but in reality it was 'because of their weakness.' So it is with us today.

A mother's compassion is merely an illustration of God's compassion. It is God who gives meaning to compassion.

God is compassionate as a part of his divine nature. He does not try to show compassion. It is not 'second' nature. He does not wrestle in his inner will until compassion wins out over something else.  God is, in Himself, by nature, full of compassion. It is just who He is.

God extends compassion when it is not deserved, when justice calls for rejection, judgment, or even death. God could have said to Moses, "I AM who I am; I am compassion."

Oh wait . . . He did!

     The LORD God, compassionate....
     --Exodus 34:6