Matthew 14 13-14,  When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.  Hearing of this, the crowds followed Him on foot from the towns.  When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Herod had just had John the Baptist beheaded, and Jesus had set out to have some time alone.  We must always keep in mind that Jesus was God, but He also experienced the same emotions we do. 

Have you ever needed some solitude so you could process something you were going through, but for the life of you, solitude was nowhere to be found until you wanted to pull your hair out? Or worse yet, have you ever had someone hurt you deeply, or you were overwhelmed with a situation you were facing, and in your pain, you lashed out at someone who was completely innocent of all of the emotions you were feeling inside? They had nothing to do with what was going on in your heart and head. We have all experienced something along those lines on some level at some point in our lives; it’s called misplaced anger. You aren’t able to lash out in the moment you’re in at whatever the problem is or whoever the problem is, so some innocent person enters your space unwittingly, having no clue what is about to come at them, and through no fault of their own. We often throw out the phrase, “Hurt people, hurt people,” and even though that is often the case, it doesn’t have to happen that way.  Some of my deepest regrets have come from being frustrated about something or overwhelmed with a broken heart and saying something that even though it was not directed at the person I was speaking to, who, mind you, had nothing to do with my overwhelming emotions, I said it in such a way that they thought I was blaming them. I allowed the lies that satan was telling me about me because he was kicking me while I was down to spew out of my own mouth in agreement, even though they were lies and in the process hurt an innocent person. This is why we must take every thought captive. Satan will rarely attack you when you are joyful and living your best life; he waits until you are hurting and vulnerable. Then he slides in with his lies to say, “You really are a terrible parent, or you just can’t do anything right, or if you were more capable you wouldn’t be in this situation, you are worthless”, and he is going to do his best to not just take you down with those lies but he wants to take out everyone else he possibly can using you and your pain as his tool.

Once we accept Jesus as our Savior, He gives us the Holy Spirit, and He gives us the ability to choose to be more like Jesus. Whatever we may be experiencing at any given point in time, we can choose to respond as He would respond. If you have never read the book  In His Steps by Charles M. Sheldon, I encourage you to. It’s the story of a town where members of a church there decided to base all of their decisions on “What would Jesus do?”  Yes, that is where that came from, and it is an inspiring, easy read!  It’s only $7.43 right now on Amazon, just click here: In His Steps.  We all have opportunities to not only experience God’s love and comfort, we can extend it to those around us every day as well. This world is full of hurting and angry people. Let’s all pray for God to move in our hearts in such a way that our response in our pain is compassion, so others will be drawn to Him!