"Can you help us? Our roof is leaking, the kids are hungry, my husband has been depressed because he can’t work (our host country does not allow us to work because we are refugees) and for this reason it’s been hard to make ends meet”. This is what we often hear from numerous refugee families we visit, and it is overwhelming.

Jesus faced such crowds of people in His ministry. There were many people in need. How did He deal with the people who came pressing into Him on a daily basis? Throughout the Scriptures, we read that before helping or serving the people, He was moved with compassion. Jesus was a loving, sensitive man, who was moved with compassion. In Matthew 15:32, for instance, Jesus called His disciples and told them that He had compassion for the people because they had been with Him for three days and had had nothing to eat and He did not want to send them away hungry, or they might collapse on the way. So what does He do? He prays, gives thanks for the little they have and God provides bread and fish for thousands. In another instance, in Matthew 14:13-21, Jesus feeds another crowd and it says there that “taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks …”. Jesus looked up to heaven, prayed and trusted His Heavenly Father to provide. 

What is compassion and what can we learn from Jesus’s compassion? Compassion is the feeling that arises within us which motivates us to take action, to change a circumstance. To have compassion is to be moved to have mercy toward someone. 

I am embarrassed to say that as “a fixer” rather than letting compassion fuel me to seek God to help and provide for those who ask for help, I often try to find quick solutions on my own which lead me to rely on my own strength and resources, and when I don’t succeed, I become frustrated, hardened, and apathetic. It’s all a work of my own flesh. But Jesus teaches us that compassion always bears fruit that is honoring to the Father. Thus, our compassion ought to be a conduit that moves us to take action that brings glory to God, not ourselves.