Just when I thought I was managing my self-care, along comes self-compassion. In a May 25 article in The New York Times, “How to Stop Being So Hard on Yourself,” writer Christina Caron points out that self-compassion is different from self-care. It’s “empowerment to be yourself, to feel what you’re feeling, full and without needless defense.”

Sounds like a lot of Kindergartners I know, but for we less-than-self-compassionate adults, the article offers advice such as saying kind things to yourself every day; or taking a compassion break to investigate your emotions and responses to them, especially if you assume something is wrong with you.

Psychologist Tara Brach notes that assuming something is wrong with you “is probably the biggest suffering that people have: ‘I’m unlovable, I’m falling short, I should be doing more.’” Her solution: once you figure out what the suffering part of you needs, send yourself a kind message.

After fleeing the Lord’s presence, being tossed overboard and surviving three days in the belly of a fish, I wonder if Jonah felt in need of some self-compassion, a few kind messages from himself before he headed to Nineveh a second time to deliver God’s message of destruction. He must have found that self-compassion and empowerment as he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4)

Then the unthinkable happened. Jonah’s self-compassion encountered God’s compassion, when the king of Nineveh decided to take a risk on repentance. “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (Jonah 3:8, 9)

Jonah knew exactly what would happen when the people repented, and he told God what he was fully feeling: “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah 4:2)

God’s compassion changes everything.

For those who think they are unlovable, God abounds in steadfast love. To those who say they are falling short, God says, “Yes, you are falling short. Everyone has fallen short of my glory, but I know your frame, which is why I redeem you from the pit.”

To those who think they should be doing more, God reminds them that he is the one who forgives iniquities and crowns us with steadfast love and mercy. We can do nothing other than repent as the king of Nineveh did and be overwhelmed with God’s compassion, mercy and abounding steadfast love.

No, the suffering part of ourselves does not need more kind messages or empowerment, our suffering selves need—and have—the Suffering Servant, who has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west.