Compassion for God

“Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehonanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.” (Ezra 10:6)

With natural sorrow, we cry about what is taken from us.

The Spirit extends our sorrow into the heavenly places, into the very heart of the Father. As we grow in friendship with Jesus, we begin to cry about what is taken from God.

Ezra wept, not over what he lost, but over what God lost. By intermarrying with the Canaanites, Israel “broke faith.” They took what the Lord deserved—honor and fidelity and fear—and grieved the heart of God. 

As a friend of God, Ezra cried with him. On God’s behalf, he felt the aches of a husband betrayed. Ezra’s greatest concern wasn’t how he felt but how God felt. The grief of the Father so permeated Ezra’s heart that he couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep.

The Spirit of God grieves over sin (Ephesians 4:30).

Do we grieve with our friend?

Do we enter in with compassion and suffer his pains? 

Do we tend to the heart of God—his sadness, his joy, his anger?  

Or are we only concerned that he tends to ours?

Selfishness manifests in caring only about our success, our wants, our needs, and our circumstances. A sign of loving friendship is that our heart starts to take on the joys and pains of another (1 Corinthians 13:7). 

So it is with our Best Friend. To know Jesus intimately is to become intimately familiar with what pleases his heart and grieves his soul.