Many years ago I was having a lot of pain in my back. One day as I visited friends, Danielle,* a woman I’d known for a short time, said, “Let me pray for you.” She put her hands on my back, prayed a short prayer, and immediately, the pain lifted.

Since Danielle was a professing Christian who had recently had a moral failure, I was so puzzled that God had healed me through her prayer. On my way home, I puckered my forehead and said, “Lord, why would you choose to heal me through someone like her?” I had no doubt that Danielle was an unfit instrument.

I’ve never forgotten the Lord’s succinct answer. “I not only know what people do, I know why.”

A few days later, I talked to someone who had known Danielle for many years. She said, “I’ve never known anyone who has been as physically, sexually, and mentally abused as Danielle.”

Suddenly God’s words made sense. He looked at Danielle through eyes of compassion because He knew everything about her. In His eyes, she was doing well for someone who had been abused as she had. He knew her heart.

In some ways, I’m a pretty black and white person: right is right, and wrong is wrong. This realization that God may not see people as I do is still sometimes hard for me to comprehend. It reminds me a little of the woman who anointed Jesus with perfume from her alabaster jar in Luke 7. The Pharisee who had invited Jesus to his house definitely thought the woman wasn’t worthy. He said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is─that she is a sinner.”  So the assumption was that Jesus wouldn’t have allowed the woman to touch Him had He known she was a sinner.

But Jesus made a habit of either touching or allowing Himself to be touched by people no one else wanted to touch─the leper he healed in Mark 1:40-42, the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5, the fishermen and tax collectors he chose as his disciples. I’m sure the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t think they were worthy either. Samuel would have chosen Eliab, the handsome eldest son of Jessie, as the next king of Israel. But God said, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7).

How many times have we, like the Scribes and Pharisees, judged people as “unworthy?” How desperately we need to look at others with eyes of compassion as Jesus did, asking for  the discernment of the Holy Spirit, and choosing not to disqualify  people as unworthy without ever knowing their hearts.

Father, help us see others through your eyes, knowing that you not only know what people do, you know why. Amen.

*Name changed