Three Ways We Can Know Jesus Understands Us
The most naked words on the planet are: “You just don’t understand me.”
They exude desperation and vulnerability and unleash the slow descent of hopelessness into one’s soul.
A couple I cared about attempted to repair their marriage. I watched it unfold, and I tried to be a good friend. Progress seemed to be happening, but something was causing the wheels of progress to spin.
After she attempted to share her feelings, I looked at her and said, “Tell him a bit more about that. What do you mean?” She took a deep breath and spewed it out, about three minutes worth.
As soon as she was done, without much emotion, he retorted with some selfish refrain that began with these exasperating but common words, “But YOU don’t ….” And it doesn’t matter what came after the word “you.” It never does.
She exploded with tears, slumped, and then conjured enough energy to straighten up and say, “You just don’t understand me,” and then she collapsed into what would prove a long and lonely road.
But she was right. Not only did she not feel understood, but she was also not understood by the man with whom she shared everything. What she needed most was to be gotten. That's what we all need.
I realize that Jesus understands me, and that's what I need more than anything. As long as he does, I can deal with others who don’t.
I believe Jesus gets me because of what he did and encountered.
A stay-at-home mom can’t understand what it's like to be a soldier on the front line, but another soldier can. An accountant can’t understand what being a stay-at-home mom is like. It’s difficult to know the emotions of a lady who has miscarried unless you have experienced the same death.
We try, but we can’t truly understand others without similar experiences.
Jesus did and dealt with many things that make me believe he understands us. Here are three.
1. Jesus understands our fatigue.
Consider two scenes, both on the water. In the first, Jesus takes a nap.
Matthew 8 chronicles a piece of Jesus’s schedule. He walked a lot. He met people. He dealt with serious issues. He fixed some issues and some people. He healed a few of the sick ones. He challenged those asking for handouts, and eventually, he saw a large crowd coming toward him, more people with more problems, good people with critical questions.
His response? “Let’s get outta here.”
We aren’t told why Jesus didn’t stay and help those people, but he didn’t. He often didn’t. He couldn’t help everyone, not as a human.
We know what happened next, and we're pretty sure why.
He got in a boat, sailed across the lake, and fell asleep as the waves rocked and the winds sang a lullaby.
He was tired. And he did what we should do when fatigue overwhelms us. He didn’t pray about it. He didn’t push through it. He didn’t down an energy drink. He escaped. He rested. He took a nap and understands when we want to take one, too.
Let’s look at the second scene, same lake, different time, no napping.
This time, Jesus wasn’t with the disciples. He'd sent them across the lake, and he took a little alone time up on the mountain before he began a contemplative walk on the lake, which isn't something we should try.
Then something interesting happened. Mark 6:48 says that Jesus saw the disciples struggling in the boat, and he wanted to pass by.
It's possible that the translation could mean he wanted to pass in front of them, but it also seems like a confession of his humanness that he “wanted to get outta there.” (NASB and NRSV translate it: He intended to pass them by.) It was between three and six in the morning, and he was again exhausted. Who wouldn’t be?
It happens. It's a part of who we are. We get fatigued. It's part of a rugged life.
When the world walks on us, or our pace spins down, remember, Jesus understands.
We aren’t bad people for wanting to get away or even take a siesta. Sometimes it’s the wisest and most spiritual thing we can do. So go ahead. Get outta here.
2. Jesus understands our fear.
Many things cause fear. Some cripple us, and some simply stress us. Both responses aren't healthy. But Jesus felt them, too, and responded well.
On that dreadful and beautiful night when the killing of the King began (Matthew 26), Jesus went to a familiar garden to pray. His prayer, which he must have told someone about or one of the disciples secretly witnessed, reveals the horror in his heart. He knew all too well what was coming. He knew early in life that the cross was his penultimate destiny.
Did he cringe each time he heard the nails pounding during a criminal’s execution along the road in Jerusalem? He must have.
In the garden, he prayed, and his prayer wasn't one we expect from our leaders. It isn’t one we often allow in ourselves. It wasn't cowardly, but it was fearful.
He cried.
He let it all out.
He wailed.
He was under so much pressure that his sweat dripped like thick blood.
He asked God to change his mind, to change the plan.
Jesus was afraid.
Afraid of pain.
Of feeling the weight of all the world’s sins.
Of being alone.
Afraid of all sorts of things that would happen to him.
Are we afraid?
To speak in public?
Ask our dream girl out?
Take a stand for Christ in the midst of our anti-Christ band of bros or sisters?
Do we sit in our room and contemplate the fear, no matter what it is, and think, “No one understands me?” Well, one does, and he'll be with us. We're not alone.
So be afraid, but also be brave.
3. Jesus understands our oblivion.
Speaking of fear, a primal fear of something churns inside us: oblivion.
In the novel and movie The Fault in Our Stars, young people with terminal illnesses confront death in ways the young and healthy don’t. Augustus reveals his fear as he sits in a support group with cancer patients and explains his passion for making a mark on the world before he dies.
His longing is driven by this fear that most of us must have. In brief, he says:
“I fear oblivion.”
“I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”
This fear drives the rest of the story for Augustus and Hazel, though it plays out differently for both as they try to make their lives and deaths meaningful and not forgettable.
What do we do when we feel that our life is so small that we just don’t count?
In a world of celebrities and YouTube, it can feel like only the popular or known are significant. We can feel that no matter how useful and good our lives are, we just aren’t significant if we are obscure.
Jesus must understand us. This statement has always fascinated me. Here is what it says:
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52).
That's a summary of Jesus’s life between the ages of 12 and 30-ish, between when he went to the temple to learn as a child and when he started his public ministry. It’s a nice summary. It tells us he grew intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially. But that’s it. It’s generic.
In other words, the most important person in history was unpopular and unknown day after day for about 90 percent of his life. For sure, during his teens and twenties, he lived in oblivion.
I wonder if there were ever moments when he wanted to say, “Do you know who I am?” Maybe he wanted to declare, “Wait until my Father hears about this. Oh, he already has.” Or, perhaps in his more human moments, he wondered and feared oblivion too.
Jesus understands what it's like to be a teenager, a passionate young adult. He knows what it's like not making it big, not being respected, seemingly not doing anything important. He was a student and a blue-collar worker.
He was not changing the world, and when he tried, they killed him.
When I contemplate Luke 2:52, I find encouragement to do what I need to do, to be content, and to know that God sees me and he's enough of an audience for me. What we do, big or small, on this earth counts.
God sees us. He's for us too. We're not irrelevant to him, and our efforts will fade into eternity, not oblivion.
I'm convinced that when I'm tired, afraid, or feeling insignificant, he doesn't tell me to just get over it, and he certainly doesn't change the conversation or blame me. He understands. And that helps a lot.