A Nap, Some Tears and a Flipped Table

Recently my pastor said something that stood out to me – “Pay attention to Jesus’ reactions. We can learn a lot about His character as well as how we should react in similar situations.”

That night as I was reading my devotion, I started to notice Jesus had a wide range of reactions to the things happening around Him. He cried. He got angry. He showed compassion. He challenged people. He walked away. He even took a nap.

Jesus’ reactions weren’t always what people expected, but there’s something we can learn from each of them. Here are three moments that show us what it can look like to respond to life a little more like Jesus - and the first one is my favorite.

Jesus slept during the storm — His reaction to chaos was rest. 

(Mark 4:35-41)

This one absolutely belongs. A violent storm hits, the disciples are panicking, the boat is taking on water…and Jesus is asleep on a cushion. What stands out isn’t simply that Jesus was tired. It’s that the stress everyone else felt did not dictate His response. The disciples essentially wake Him up with, “Don’t you care?” That’s incredibly relatable. When we’re afraid, God’s apparent calm can feel like God’s absence. But Jesus wasn’t unconcerned; He simply wasn’t afraid of what frightened them.

Takeaway: Not everything that feels urgent requires us to panic. Peace isn’t pretending there isn’t a storm. It’s knowing who is with you in it.

Jesus wept with Mary and Martha — His reaction to grief was compassion.

(John 11:32–36)

Here’s the thing - Jesus already knew what He was going to do. Lazarus wasn’t going to stay dead. Jesus could have said, “Guys, give Me five minutes. You’re about to see something amazing.” Instead, He saw Mary crying, saw the people around her crying, and Jesus wept. He didn’t use His knowledge of the happy ending to dismiss the pain of the present moment.

Takeaway: Knowing that God can redeem something doesn’t mean we’re supposed to skip grieving it. Jesus shows us that faith and sadness can exist at the same time. Sometimes the Christlike reaction isn’t explaining someone’s pain—it’s entering into it with them.

Jesus flipped the tables — His reaction to wrongdoing was anger.

(Matthew 21:12–13; John 2:13–17)

This is such an important counterweight to the gentle pictures we tend to have of Jesus. He walked into the temple, saw something deeply wrong, and didn’t respond with, “Well, I don’t want to cause any tension.” He confronted it. His anger wasn’t petty, ego-driven or about being inconvenienced. He was angry about something that mattered.

Takeaway: Anger itself isn’t automatically sinful. The question is what our anger is protecting and what we do with it. Jesus’ anger wasn’t about defending His pride; it was directed toward what dishonored God and hurt what was meant to be holy.

Jesus didn't have one default reaction.

What made Him perfect wasn’t that He never experienced strong emotion. It was that His reactions were appropriate to what was actually happening rather than being controlled by fear, ego, pressure or other people’s expectations.

Being more like Jesus doesn’t mean becoming endlessly nice, calm, agreeable and available. Sometimes the Christlike response is compassion. Sometimes it’s righteous anger. And apparently, sometimes the most Christlike thing you can do is take a nap!