The Limitless Compassion of God

“In their distress God too was distressed, and the angel of God’s presence saved them. In God’s love and mercy they were redeemed; they were lifted up and carried all the days of old.”

~Isaiah 63:9 (NIV [adapted]).

God’s eternal nature is to save and the compassion of God is everlasting; even to our most minute need, God’s Spirit is present. We’re lifted and carried now—even as we do not know or feel it. God is with us.

Whether we ‘experience’ God or not, this Spirit is there interceding for us, making even the harshness easier, somehow.

‘Feelings’ of Redemption

Whether we feel saved or not right now is not really the point. It doesn’t actually change the nature of God to pore over our plights.

But, of course, enjoying the comfort of the feelings of redemption extant in the all-conquering Saviour is of utmost importance to us—all of us. We all want to be delivered from the things against us.

Whether people believe in Jesus or not, we all want to be set free from the tyrannies that trap us.

Establishing More of This Redemptive Feeling

Not that this is reason enough to want to believe in God... well, no, actually it is...

God wants to save us and to relieve us. This Spirit that works within us in invisible and indivisible ways seeks out our souls, for the need of the world—for the world is starving for good.

God needs us and our Divinely-appointed agency. That God truly needs us is possibly not correct, but God has chosen to need us—as is the Spirit’s giving nature to love.

And God knows only too well that it is the experience of salvation in our moments—not just that one-off event days, years or decades back—that turns us so much back to the purposes of God in amongst the ongoing work of creation.

The more we can draw close to God (as God commensurately draws close to us [James 4:8]) the more of God’s salvation we feel, and the more we’re bent forward on a trajectory in faith toward good works.

Finishing Where We Started – Compassion

Needy? Unfulfilled? Tired? Disappointed? Lonely? Angry? [Fill in the blank space ____________ with your negative, troubled emotion.]

Pour your heart out to God. God hears us. The lamenting psalmists proved the interest of God in our sordid affairs of the heart, and in this we can test God’s love. Let us never forget God exists in us!

Would we have no compassion on ourselves? It is now easier to see God’s compassion—coming home to God is coming home to our truest selves. It is being courageously honest in our serious and self-compassionate introspection.

Limitless compassion... would we genuinely stop ourselves from gaining God’s loving perspective out of the slightest skerrick of our pain? God’s compassion is poured out generously over the littlest and largest of our problems.

God, alone, can help us.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.