Empathy and The God Who Listens

In many Christian circles, the notion of empathy has been understood as a therapeutic concept that becomes a device for justifying sin. As that logic goes, when we get inside someone’s world and understand it, suddenly sin becomes the pathological response to what others have done to us. This makes others responsible for our disobedience to God’s Word and lets us off the hook.

But this misunderstands that the God of the Christian Scriptures is the God who listens. In Genesis 2, God brings every creature to Adam to see what he would call it. In this process, no helper for Adam is found. God sees the situation through Adam’s eyes: It is not good for him to be alone. God understands the void Adam feels without a companion. God understands this without having to experience it himself. This is empathy.

We’re not told whether God and Adam had a conversation about this, but whether Adam explicitly stated it or not, you could say that God “reads” Adam and responds by creating Eve, the one who is flesh of his flesh.

God doesn’t tell Adam to suck it up. God doesn’t take Adam’s identification of this need as an affront to God’s creative capacity. God’s sees Adam’s need and takes seriously Adam’s experience.

If we fast-forward to Exodus 3, the Israelites have been under the brutal oppression of Egypt for four hundred years. God shows up to a man named Moses in a burning bush and declares, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them…” (Exodus 3:7-8, CSB, emphasis mine). God does not merely hear their cries. God is moved to action in response. How well we listen is always reflected in how we respond.

In 2 Chronicles, God shows up to Solomon and says to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple of sacrifice. If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on my people, and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. My eyes will now be open and my ears attentive to prayer from this place” (2 Chronicles 7:12-15, CSB, emphasis mine).

God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah, “You will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search me with all of your heart“ (Jeremiah 29:12-13, CSB, emphasis mine).

Finally, when we come to the New Testament, 1 John informs us, “This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 John 5:14, CSB, emphasis mine).

This is the God who listens. This is the God who empathizes with us and is moved to action on our behalf. Empathy is not just a therapeutic concept or a tool for good communication. Empathy is essential to God’s action towards creation. When we empathize, we reflect God’s character as those who bear God’s image.