Compassion: Do You See People, or Just Problems?
Read: Matthew 9:35–38
Before Jesus sends anyone anywhere in Ch 10 of Matthew, He looks in Matthew Ch 9 at the multitudes gathered. He sees crowds who are “harassed and helpless, like sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36, NKJV) — not rebels to be judged, but wounded people worn down by life. And what rises in Him isn’t irritation. It’s compassion so deep the Greek word points to something felt in the gut, not just observed from a distance.
In our society, it would be fair to say that most of the people around us don’t look harassed. They look fine — busy, capable, put together. But look closer. Underneath the calendar and the achievements there’s often anxiety, loneliness, marriages under strain, and hearts trying to fill an eternal hunger with things too small to satisfy it. Similar to the crowds of Jesus’ day, they’re like sheep having no shepherd.
Here’s the honest question this passage puts to us: do we see people the way Jesus does, or do we mostly see obstacles? The slow driver. The needy coworker. The neighbour whose life is a little too loud, too messy, too inconvenient. It’s easy to let irritation replace compassion when we never pause to actually look.
Jesus doesn’t stop at feeling something, either. He turns compassion into a prayer: “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers” (v. 38). And then, without missing a beat, He turns around and sends the very disciples who prayed it. That’s often how God works — the answer to your prayer for someone else’s life usually carries your own name.
So before you ask God to bless your week, try this instead: ask Him to help you see. Somewhere in your ordinary path this week — at work, at school pickup, next door — there is a sheep without a shepherd that He has already placed in front of you.