“Now while Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept very bitterly” (Ezra 10:1).
This hardly seems the path to popularity! Confessing? Don’t you lose your status and honor by being honest about your failures? And weeping? Does this display a manly response to the difficulties of life? And then to see him prostrating himself! What great leader today would do such things? Yet the record is clear: “a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him.”
There are two principles taught by the apostle Paul that at first seem contradictory. “Weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). “Those who weep [should be] as though they did not weep…” (1 Cor 7:30). If we would be of service to God’s people in their need, we must learn both to enter into the sufferings of others and to rise above our own sufferings to focus on others’ needs.