April — The Art of Becoming
Day 95 — 5 April
He Wept Before He Worked
“Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept.” — John 11:33–35 (NKJV)
…and the thing that strikes you, if you stay with the story long enough, is that He already knew what He was going to do.
Jesus had already told His disciples, plainly, that Lazarus’s sickness would end in glory (John 11:4). He had already declared to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). He already held the outcome in His hands. The miracle was certain. The dead man would walk out of the tomb before the afternoon was finished. And yet, standing at the edge of that grief, surrounded by weeping women and mourning friends, Jesus wept.
He wept before He worked.
What the Tears Tell Us
The Greek verb John uses is ἐδάκρυσεν (edakrysen, meaning “He shed tears” or “He wept”), from δακρύω (dakryō, meaning “to weep” or “to shed tears”). This is a different word from the one used to describe Mary’s weeping or the crowd’s weeping, which is κλαίω (klaiō, meaning “to wail” or “to cry aloud”). Mary and the mourners were wailing audibly, expressing grief in the customary manner of first-century Jewish bereavement. Jesus wept quietly. His tears were personal, interior, deeply felt. The distinction is important: Jesus was entering their grief genuinely, from within, carrying it in a way that was entirely His own.
But John records something even more striking before the tears. Verse 33 says Jesus “groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” The Greek ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι (enebrimēsato tō pneumati) uses the verb ἐμβριμάομαι (embrimaomai), which carries a force far stronger than ordinary sadness. It describes a deep, visceral agitation, something closer to a shudder of indignation or profound inner disturbance. And the phrase ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν (etaraxen heauton, meaning “He troubled Himself” or “He stirred Himself”) tells us this response was voluntary. The reflexive pronoun ἑαυτόν (heauton, “Himself”) indicates that Jesus chose to enter this emotional state. He allowed the grief of the moment to move through Him. He opened Himself to the full weight of human sorrow, even though He held the power to end it in a single word.
This is emotional becoming. The One whose identity was the most secure in the history of creation chose to feel what the grieving felt before He acted on what He knew. He entered their emotional world before He demonstrated His authority. He sat with their pain before He revealed His power.
Why Empathy Precedes Effectiveness
There is a moment in grief that anyone who has lost someone dear will recognise. A friend arrives at the door. They bring flowers, or food, or simply themselves. And the grieving person, through red-rimmed eyes, searches their face for one thing above all else: do you understand what I am feeling? Have you come to fix me, or have you come to be with me?
The difference between those two postures is everything. The friend who arrives with solutions, however well-intentioned, often leaves the grieving person feeling more isolated than before. Their answers may be theologically accurate, their advice may be practically sound, but something essential is missing. The grieving heart needs to be met before it can be moved. It needs to feel that the person standing in front of it has entered the room of its pain, has breathed its air, has felt the weight of its silence. Only then can words of comfort carry the authority of genuine understanding.
Jesus could have walked to the tomb, spoken the word, and raised Lazarus without shedding a single tear. The outcome would have been identical. The dead man would still have walked. The crowd would still have marvelled. Yet Jesus chose the longer route. He wept first. He let Himself feel the grief of the people He loved before He exercised the power He carried. And because He wept, when He finally said, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43), the words landed in a room that had already been held, already been honoured, already been entered by someone who understood.
This is the fifth lesson of the art of becoming: it requires emotional entering. Day 91 established that becoming demands settled identity. Day 92 showed it demands initiative. Day 93 revealed it demands descent. Day 94 demonstrated it demands observation. Today we discover that becoming also demands the willingness to feel what the other person feels, to enter their emotional reality with authenticity, and to let their experience touch you before you offer what you carry.
The Cost of Feeling
The art of becoming is costly precisely here. It is one thing to cross a cultural gap, to learn a new language, to observe unfamiliar customs. Those are external adjustments that, with discipline, most people can master. But emotional entering requires something internal. It asks you to open yourself to another person’s sorrow, confusion, fear, or loneliness, and to carry a portion of it within you for as long as the moment demands. It asks you to be moved, genuinely moved, by what moves them.
Paul captured this principle in Romans 12:15 when he wrote, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” The simplicity of the instruction conceals its depth. Rejoicing with the joyful means letting their happiness become yours, even when your own circumstances give you little cause for celebration. Weeping with the grieving means letting their sorrow press against your heart, even when you hold answers that could ease it. Both require the willingness to feel on someone else’s behalf, which is possible only when your own identity is settled enough to absorb another person’s emotional weight and still remain standing.
Jesus was settled. His identity was absolute. His knowledge of the outcome was complete. And from that place of total security, He chose to feel. He chose the tears. He chose the groan. He chose to trouble Himself with the full burden of human grief. And because He felt it first, when the miracle came, it arrived inside a relationship, inside compassion, inside understanding, rather than from a distance.
You are called to the same art. Wherever God has positioned you, there are people around you whose emotional world is waiting for someone to enter it. They may need your wisdom eventually. They may benefit from your experience in time. But before any of that can land, they need to know that you have felt what they feel. They need your tears before your solutions. They need your presence before your programme.
The art of becoming is the art of feeling with people, and then, from within that shared feeling, offering what only a settled, secure, compassionate heart can give.
Declaration
I am present to the emotions of those around me. I enter the joy of those who celebrate and the grief of those who mourn, and I do so with a heart that is strong enough to carry what it feels. My identity is so deeply established that I can absorb the weight of another person’s world and still stand. I weep with those who weep. I rejoice with those who rejoice. I allow the people in my life to be truly seen, truly heard, and truly held. The God whose compassion is constant flows through me as I open myself to the emotional reality of every person I encounter. I am tender where tenderness is needed, and I am steady where steadiness is required. Today, I enter someone’s world with my whole heart, and I trust that my presence, before my words, is already the beginning of what they need.
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