Is Jesus Weeping Alone?

Soon after Missionary Amy Carmichael arrived in India, she was distressed because orphan girls were given to Hindu temples to be used as prostitutes. Her heart ached for those girls, so she started an orphanage hoping to rescue them.

The Hindu priests resented her intrusion into their affairs, and soon British businessmen complained to the missionaries that they must stop Amy. When the unsympathetic missionaries told her to quit, Amy went to the priest herself. He was not about to hand the girls over to her.

She went home thinking she would have to forget helping these young prostitutes. Surely it was not to be her burden. But then it seemed she saw Jesus kneeling alone as He knelt long ago weeping under the olive trees. 

Would Amy Carmichael share His burden and weep with Jesus? 

"The only thing that one who cared could do," she wrote, "was to go softly and kneel down beside Him, so that He would not be alone in His sorrow over the little children." God eventually used Amy to rescue hundreds of girl prostitutes from the temples.

God seeks for those who are willing to carry burdens with Him by interceding for others. Intercession is passionately entering into the needs of those for whom we are praying. Dr. John Oswalt, speaking of intercession said, "We storm the gates of heaven. Why? Because God is callous and uncaring? No, because we are callous and uncaring, and until our passion is in some small way connected to the great passion of God, his power is in some way restrained." 

Just as Jesus was disappointed when the disciples were too sleepy to "keep watch" with Him, He is still disappointed when we are too unconcerned to "keep watch." God acts when someone prays for what is on His heart with a true burden.

Dear Jesus, what burden do you want to share with me? Give me a sensitivity to what grieves You. Give me tears to weep over what You weep over.

Do "not grieve the Holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4:30).