Hey y'all, you're listening to the Join the podcast with your host, Emma Daughter.

To learn more about today's reading or to read along with us, check out jointhejourney.com.

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What does it mean to have compassion?

In today's chapter, Jesus saw a crowd and had compassion.

He saw a need and wanted to meet it. In my own personal walk

with the Lord, I've come to play close attention to the ways in which Jesus interacts with crowds

or larger groups of people. There's something grounding there for me as the ministry I'm doing

on social media continues to grow numerically. And so the way Jesus thinks about crowds has

become more and more relevant to me. When I first started in social media, there were these,

and really there still are fears about getting swept away in the numbers. Those are real.

Seeing people as accounts instead of image bearers is a temptation. And it's really

important for me to remember there's a soul behind every screen. And when I first approached social

media ministry, I was wary of the bad rep young people can get for using the internet in order

to grow a larger following. Think influence our culture or aspiring to be a

YouTuber, that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I was conflicted because I knew that as a

follower of Christ, I should want to reach more and more people with the truth. But for some reason,

the pitfalls of social media were something the enemy started using to convince me that

maybe it's a bad idea to try to reach a lot of people with truth on the internet. And then

maybe it's okay to reach people with truth, but only a certain amount within a certain threshold.

Then it's too far. Or maybe you just shouldn't worry about reaching people at all. God will take care of it, right?

Looking at the potential of an ever-increasing following is scary. There's a lot of ways I could drift.

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