Compassion You Can Count on
What Hagar, Abraham and the Israelites Teach us About God's Love
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” -2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV)
(This blog post is part of a series on the character of God, based on Exodus 34:6-7).
In our last post, we took a closer look at what God meant when he described himself as a compassionate God. The key idea is that God chooses to respond with love and care when we face times of heartache. Instead of responding with judgment or indifference, God responds with special favor when we cry out to him in pain.
It’s worthwhile to remember that throughout the Bible as a whole, we find real-life examples of the character traits God uses to describe himself in Exodus 34. God doesn’t just tell Israel he is a compassionate God, he shows compassion from generation to generation. And Israel would not have had to go far back into their history to see an example of God’s compassion towards them. They just had to go back to chapter 2 of Exodus, when God responded to their cries for help:
“Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.” -Exodus 2:23-25 (NLT)
God Hears Us When We Cry Out.
Suffering and compassion go hand-in-hand. And Israel was no stranger to suffering. When the Bible talks about them groaning and crying out, I hope you’ll try to imagine how bitter their lives were in Egypt. They suffered under the heavy, oppressive hand of the Egyptians for over four centuries. I just don’t think most of us in the 21st century will be able to fully understand the depths of their despair.
To this day, when the Jewish people celebrate Passover, part of the meal includes eating bitter herbs that have been dipped in salt water. The bitter herbs are a reminder of the bitterness of their time in Egypt, and the saltwater represents the tears of the Israelite slaves. The suffering of God’s people is an important part of the story because it serves as a powerful reminder of what God was saving them from.
In Exodus 2, the people of God are groaning. They are crying out in pain. And the Bible tells us that God did four specific things as a response:
God heard them. The people did not cry out in vain; God paid careful attention to every word.
God remembered his covenant. God never forgot his covenant, but as he listened to the cries of his people, he gave extra attention to the promises of life and protection that he made to Abraham.
God saw them. God did not turn his eyes away from the suffering of his people. He saw them. He took special note of them. He paid careful attention to what was happening.
God knew. The Hebrew text doesn’t tell us what God knew, just that God knew. The NLT’s interpretation that God knew “it was time to act” seems to fit, based on the what happened next in the story. But it’s also possible that it just means God knew what was happening, knew about the injustice, and knew what his people were going through.
I hope you’ll let these truths sink in for a moment. When we cry out to God, we can be confident that God hears us. God remembers the promises that he’s made to all of us who are in Christ. God’s eyes are fixed on us, just like a mother or father watches over their young children to protect them. And God knows. He knows us, he knows the situation, he knows the right time to spring into action.
"The God Who Sees Me.”
The third action God takes in Exodus 2, “God looked down on the people,” uses the Hebrew verb “to see,” and in addition to the literal meaning of seeing someone with your eyes, it also carries a connotation of looking after someone, watching over them, or caring for their needs.
One interesting way we see that play out is in Genesis 22, when Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac. At the end of the story (which you should definitely read, if you haven’t already), God provides an alternative sacrifice so that Isaac’s life is spared. Abraham gives God a new name — The Lord will Provide, but the literal translation is “The Lord Will See.”
In other words, when God “sees” us, it’s not a passive form of seeing or a distant form of watching, it’s an active way that he steps in to meet our needs.
And this word calls to mind another story of God’s compassionate response to human suffering, the story of Hagar in Genesis 16. Hagar, as you may remember, was a slave of Abraham and Sarah. After Hagar became pregnant with Abraham’s child, Sarah started mistreating Hagar and making life miserable for her, so much so that Hagar was sent off into the wilderness to fend for herself.
Alone in the wilderness and wondering how she will survive, Hagar is visited by an angel of the Lord, who speaks a word of blessing over her and gives her a promise of hope about her future child. At the end of that encounter, Hagar gives God a new name: "You are the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13).
Hagar isn’t just saying that God saw her from a distance. She’s saying that God saw was watching over her and providing for her when she needed him most.
Compassion We Can Count On
These stories about Hagar, Abraham, and the Israelites shows us that the compassion of God is something we can count on. When we cry out to God in pain or sorrow, we can be confident that he hears us, sees us, knows us, and will be faithful to his promises.
I am grateful that despite my unworthiness, I am seen, heard, remembered, and known by God who is my loving, compassionate father. I am grateful for the numerous ways he shows his love as revealed in the scriptures and in my life personally.