Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)

Compassion is defined as the feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, coupled with the desire to relieve it. In the Bible the compassion of God is closely related to His love and mercy. Although compassion is an emotion, we feel compassion for others, it is also an action. When someone is experiencing pain and suffering, maybe they lose their job, receive a scary health diagnosis or lose a loved one, we feel compassion for that person but we also show our compassion. Maybe it’s just by being there, listening, encouraging, giving them a shoulder to cry on or we help with a need by giving money, food and material things. In the same way, all throughout the Bible and in our lives today, we see and feel the compassion of God. He has emotions, He feels love and compassion for us and He shows that compassion in so many ways.

The Hebrew word for compassion is ‘racham’ and it is related to the Hebrew word for womb, ‘rechem’. For a moment, think about a mother’s womb. The child inside receives everything they need in the womb- shelter, protection, strength and nourishment. Even though he or she doesn’t know they need it, those things are provided. God does the same for us. The Bible says He is our shelter, refuge, our protector and provider. He is our strength, our redeemer, our Savior. Everything we need is found in Him. He gives exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. As a mother carries her child in her womb, the love and compassion she feels for that baby is indescribable. It’s impossible to explain how you can love someone that you have never even seen, so very much. And just when you think there is no possible way for you to love them anymore, you give birth and you hold that child for the first time and you see their beautiful, perfect face and your heart enlarges and the love and compassion you feel toward that child abounds even more. God says even this doesn’t compare to what He feels for us. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;” (Isaiah 49:15-16)

Sometimes God makes it easy for us to recognize His compassion. He shows it through forgiveness and deliverance, or rescue. He gives healing to the sick, jobs to the unemployed, families to the lonely. His greatest act of compassion was the sacrifice He made when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus saw us before we were born and had such great compassion for us that He willingly spread out His arms on that cross and died for us. There is no greater love, no greater act of compassion than that. But I think there are times when God shows His compassion in ways we don’t expect, in ways that we don’t even recognize as compassion at the time. Sometimes I believe He is most compassionate in unanswered prayers.

We all have things that we are consistently praying for, good things. As we pray, we truly believe we are asking according to His will, so we keep on “asking, seeking and knocking” but we are still not receiving. It is in those moments in my life, when Satan steps in and says, “If God is really all-powerful, why doesn’t He do this for you? If God loves you so much, why doesn’t He give you what you’re asking for?” And I’ll be honest, I have asked God those very same questions. It is easy to get discouraged and sometimes, even angry because we can’t understand. We don’t see what God sees. We don’t know what He knows. Satan will use times like this to try to turn us away from God. He wants to convince us that God is not for us, but against us. Satan has forgotten one very important fact though. I know my Heavenly Father and I know without a shadow of a doubt, He loves me, He cares for me, He is compassionate toward me and He has a good and perfect plan for me. So I know that when He doesn’t answer the way I want Him to, when He says “No” or “Not yet”, it is because there is something better down the road that He will reveal at the perfect time. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Maybe you, too, are praying for something, asking God over and over to do this one thing for you and He just hasn’t done it…YET. Don’t be discouraged. Trust that God is “working all things together for the good of those who love Him”. (Romans 8:28) Know that He is not withholding it from you to be cruel, He is actually pouring out an abundance of compassion on you, and “His compassions never fail”. (Lamentations 3:22) Believe that God is going to show up and when He does He will do “immeasurably more than you can think or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20) When God tells you ‘no’ or ‘not yet’, listen closely and hear Him telling you with the utmost compassion, “The best is yet to come”.