Does Jesus really understand how I feel? How many of you have ever asked that question in total sincerity? It’s not even that you doubt that He is God or that He died for your sins. The challenge sometimes is that we forget that He is God in the flesh and that He really is relatable. We don’t doubt His omniscience or His power or even His ability to be omnipresent. We get that part. It’s easy to focus on the fact that He is fully Divine; what we forget is that He walked on this earth fully human, too.
I had the funniest thought earlier today as I listened to my stomach growl while I was sitting in my office. Well, first, of course, I thought, “It’s snack time. Let me eat something.” But after that, I had a second thought: Jesus knows the pangs of hunger.
Now that may not seem earth-shattering to you right now, but the thought allowed me to reflect on Jesus as a human being. A real man. One that got lonely, angry, and sad. He experienced rejection, sorrow, pain, and loss. The people around Him didn’t really understand Who He was or what He was doing most of the time. He had to maintain balance because He lived among the people, but He had to find alone time with God. (That can be a real challenge today because our lives are so fast-paced.) Jesus’s life teaches us so many things, but we can miss out on really connecting to Him because we don’t fully realize that He does understand how we feel. He gets it.
Jesus is our Wonderful Counselor. He knows what is lying ahead of us—He’s seen it already—and He really does understand what it’s like to be human. He doesn’t offer clichés with little more than great sound bites. He can speak from total authority and total empathy at the same time.
The Manna Chef 