Why had God placed me here? As I watched the group of people before me, I shook my head in disbelief and made all kinds of judgments about them. Couldn’t they see how their current choices would impact their future? How could they be so oblivious to the path of destruction they were on? I just wanted to move on to others who were more open and welcoming to what I had to offer them. 

As I sat there and judged these people for all the ways they were living wrongly, God whispered to me, “What else would you expect from a people who don’t know Jesus?'' In our focal verse Matthew 9:36, Jesus saw the poor state of the crowds around him and had compassion for them, not condemnation. He recognized the real reason for their condition. They needed Him. Besides, who was I to judge them? I needed Jesus just like them at one point in my life, and still do every day to live a pleasing life unto Him. 

With that whisper from the Lord, my outlook on the people God had placed me among changed. Jesus’ compassion became my compassion. The Cambridge online dictionary defines compassion as “a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them”. In that moment, the condemnation I had toward the group of people turned to sadness and understanding. I no longer focused on their outward actions, but realized their lives reflected what life looks like without Jesus. And this led me to the question, “what can I do to help them know Jesus?” What a shift! One minute I was looking to get away, but with that one whisper from the Lord, I was now seeking out what I could do to help them know Jesus.   

Wherever God places us for ministry, there will be people who are not like us because they don’t know Jesus. This is why He puts us where He puts us. In the short passage of Matthew 9:35-38, Jesus speaks of the masses who are waiting to be told about Him and the alternative life He offers. But they can’t be told if He doesn’t send His people to share this life-saving message. We are His people, those workers chosen to be conduits of His compassion we have received ourselves. May we keep this in mind, to allow Jesus’ compassion to help us see – correctly – those God has placed us among, for the purpose of pointing them to Jesus.