Ever have so many demands that you can't stop for lunch? He can relate. "Crowds of people were coming and going so that Jesus and his followers did not even have time to eat" (Mark 6:31 NCV).
Do you have too much e-mail to fit in a screen or too many calls to make in a day? Christ has been there. "Great crowds came to Jesus, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, those who could not speak, and many others. They put them at Jesus' feet, and he healed them" (Matt. 15:30 NCV).
How about family tension? "When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him home with them. `He's out of his mind,' they said" (Mark 3:21 NU).
Have you been falsely accused? Enemies called Jesus a wino and a chowhound (Matt. 11:19). The night before his death people "tried to find something false against Jesus so they could kill him" (Matt. 26:59 NCV).
Do your friends ever let you down? When Christ needed help, his friends dozed off. "You men could not stay awake with me for one hour?" (Matt. 26:40 NCV).
Unsure of the future? Jesus was. Regarding the last day of history, he explained, "No one knows when that day or time will be, not the angels in heaven, not even the Son" (Matt. 24:36 NCV). Can Jesus be the Son of God and not know something? He can if he chooses not to. Knowing you would face the unknown, he chose to face the same.
Jesus has been there. He experienced "all the pain, all the testing" (Heb. 2:18 MSG). Jesus was angry enough to purge the temple, hungry enough to eat raw grain, distraught enough to weep in public, fun loving enough to be called a drunkard, winsome enough to attract kids, weary enough to sleep in a storm-bounced boat, poor enough to sleep on dirt and borrow a coin for a sermon illustration, radical enough to get kicked out of town, responsible enough to care for his mother, tempted enough to know the smell of Satan, and fearful enough to sweat blood.
But why? Why would heaven's finest Son endure earth's toughest pain? So you would know that "he is able . . . to run to the cry of . . . those who are being tempted and tested and tried" (Heb. 2:18 AMP).