God's Empathy

At the end of last year it was my privilege to substitute teach in Sunday School. Our lesson was on Exodus 3-4. The theme was on God calling Moses to his role in delivering God's people from oppression.

One of the lines from God's Word that really stood out to me was Exodus 3:7, “I know about their sufferings…” In many ways, that's the first step in dealing with people who are suffering under oppression—they need to know that someone at least knows about their predicament. That's the first step to understanding and feeling understood.

So often it's easy to develop a Savior complex that it is “our job” to deliver them, and “we must” do what we can to ease their suffering. If you read all the way to the end of Exodus 4, “the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.”

They knew their deliverance had begun.