Jesus Understands When Life Is Overwhelming

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to You, when my heart is overwhelmed and weak; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I [a rock that is too high to reach without Your help].” (Psalm 61:1-2, AMP)

As you may know from personal experience, being overwhelmed is not a pleasant feeling. How it makes us feel depends on the situation. We might feel as if a dam that has been holding back a problem has suddenly broken, completely submerging us in an overwhelming situation we can’t control. In different circumstances we might feel totally defeated, as if an army has invaded and overwhelmed our life or our body. In still other scenarios, we might feel overwhelmed or consumed by our emotions or overpowered by someone or something that is too strong for us.

No matter what being overwhelmed feels like to you, more than anyone else you will ever meet, Jesus understands what you are feeling. He experienced the ultimate state of overwhelm when he carried the sins of the entire world to the cross. When you’re overwhelmed, no matter the circumstances, he gets you; he has felt what you feel and more. He understands, because on one pivotal night in human history, Jesus was overwhelmed too.

On the night before Jesus was crucified, Matthew tells us:

“[Jesus] took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:37-39, NIV).

When we read these verses in several Bible translations and consider all of them together, we get a much fuller sense of what Jesus went through that night. In the Amplified version, overwhelmed is translated “deeply grieved.” In other versions, the word is expressed as “exceedingly sorrowful” (NKJV); “crushed with grief” (NLT); “crushed with horror and sadness” (TLB). The Phillips translation says that Jesus “began to be in terrible distress and misery, telling the disciples, ‘My heart is nearly breaking.’”

Jesus did not remain overwhelmed! He went to the cross, sacrificed his life to redeem the sins of mankind, and rose victorious from the grave. Now, this Lord of all creation is our merciful, compassionate intercessor in heaven. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV). Jesus listens intently when we pray, and he empathizes deeply with our struggles. He understands more than anyone else what we feel when we go through overwhelming experiences.

Questions to Ponder and Pray About

• From your own experience, how would you describe what it feels like to be overwhelmed?
• Did you know that Jesus felt overwhelmed the night before he was crucified? How does this make you feel?
• When you feel “overwhelmed and weak,” as David did when he wrote Psalm 61, do you pour out your heart to Jesus in prayer? If this is not yet your practice, remember that he has abundant empathy for you, no matter what you are going through.