But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. — Psalm 86:15
We are each defined by things in our lives. No, I’m not talking about the things that we possess and how we may look when we go out in public. I’m talking about the characteristics that we each have. Merriam Webster defines this as a distinguishing trait or quality. It distinguishes our character from those around us.
That is not to say that others do not possess that characteristic. It is something that we display in our character so prominent that no one around us can doubt that we possess that characteristic. Just like us, God has characteristics as well. David shares many of those in this Psalm. He says that God is gracious, patient, and full of mercy and truth. He also says God is full of compassion.
The idea of compassion is that the one who is compassionate sees the distress of the other person. No matter what the circumstance, they are aware of the circumstance and they want to take an active role in helping alleviate it. It’s much different from sympathy. With sympathy, someone simply feels bad for you, but they do not want to take part in helping you.
In this verse, David says that our God is full of compassion. It was not compassion that happened once and is gone forever. It’s not compassion that only happens at specific times or in specific situations. David says that our God is full of compassion, or that He has compassion at all times. There’s nothing in our lives that we can face that God does not have a special interest in. He wants to take an active role and help us through them.
Perhaps you feel like you could exhaust the compassion of God. Maybe you think that you have had so many problems, trials, and mistakes that there is no way that God is interested in you. That’s simply not true! Praise the Lord that our God is full of compassion. Never feel like you are in a hopeless situation because God cares and His compassion will never fail!