Does Anyone Understand Your Pain?

READ PSALM 69:16-36

Psalm 69:19-21

¹⁹ You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. ²⁰ Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.

The Lord knows and understands your pain. Not only the physical pain you may feel in your body, but also the unseen pain that hides itself deep in your heart. You know, that place where the pain hurts the most.

The first two words of verse 19 hit me right between the eyes when I read them in a moment of pain:

"You know."

In a time when you may wonder if anyone knows how it feels, or if anyone even cares that your heart has been wounded, these verses reassure you that God knows.

Even when you feel abandoned, isolated, misunderstood, or even "unseen" by the people around you, know this, your Father in heaven is offering His shoulder for you to cry on.

Sometimes all we need is someone to take the time and sit with us. We need them to listen without judgement so we can express our pain through words, vent any shame we may feel, and unburden our hearts of the emotional poison that has made the heaviness of life a weight too much to carry.

My friend, Jesus knows and understands your pain. He offers to sit with you in yours. He knows exactly how you feel. When he faced an unfair trial and was about to be sentenced to death his most loyal disciple denied him three times. In Luke 22:61-62 we are given these haunting words that give insight into the pain Jesus may have felt.

Luke 22:61-62 (ESV)

⁶¹ And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him,“Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” ⁶² And he went out and wept bitterly.

Yes, Peter went out and wept bitterly after he denied Jesus and they made eye contact, but don't for a second dismiss the pain that Jesus may have felt in that moment. Just because Jesus KNEW Peter would deny him three times does not take away from the fact that Jesus watched it happen. He was fully God, but he was also fully human! Hebrews 4:15 tells us we have a High Priest in Jesus who is able to sympathize with us because he felt everything we FEEL. By the time Jesus was suffering on the cross he had been abandoned by all but one of his disciples. That hurts!

I know we like to think that no one knows how we feel when it comes to pain. Even Tom Petty wrote the famous words, "You don't know how it feels...to be me." But the words in our Psalm for today tell us the opposite.

Jesus knows.

He understands your broken heart. Not only does he understand it, he can heal it.

Psalm 147:3 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Josh Huisman is the senior pastor of Crosswalk Church in Brentwood, TN.

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