Skip to main content

Mercy Me!

 





Do you remember playing the game Mercy when you were young? It was a feat of strength. With hands clasped, each player would try to overtake the other by bending their hands back until the pain was so great the one overtaken would cry, "Mercy!" I wouldn't say I liked the game and only played it under peer pressure. Usually, I did not come out on the winning side.  Where on earth did we come up with such amusement? I do not know why our parents let us play it? Still, the meaning of mercy in those moments of impending pain clarified the situation if we were on the losing end. Didn't it?

Sometimes, understanding our need for mercy comes through painful experiences that rock our world, reel us into a reality we cannot control, and land us right in the middle of needing help. There is no question about needing it at such times, but how can we get it?

There are countless scriptures about the mercy of our God. Regardless of why we may need it, the One who can provide it is waiting to do just that. He looks beyond our faults and often uninvited circumstances to see the needs of our hearts. No game, no feats of strength required, for He is our strength and is waiting to help us.

Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 NIV


"The worth of mercies is best taught by the want of them."

- Matthew Henry

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When People Make Life Hard

"Well, are you going just to stand there or do something?" It was my first year of teaching, and I had learned quickly that the cafeteria was a no-talking zone for anyone. Students were expected to enter in silence, eat in the same manner, and exit without a word. So, staring at the horror on the child's face, the disapproval of my principal, and my feet surrounded by the mess on the floor, from the dropped tray, I froze. It didn't appear that either of us would experience any mercy. Sometimes, people just make life hard. It's not a new problem; it's an ancient one. Exodus chapter 5 has much to say about the perils of dealing with difficult people. In this chapter, the Israelites are enslaved people in Egypt under a Pharaoh who is quite a taskmaster and knows nothing about his slaves except that they can make many bricks every single day. Things get pretty ugly when Moses and Aaron are sent to free the Israelites from their bondage. Pharaoh had no intention o...

Christian Chameleons

  As a teacher and administrator for the past thirty-one years, I have learned the powerful messages that are hidden within the pages of children's literature. Even as an adult, I identify with the character in Eric Carle's book, The Mixed-up Chameleon. It's the story of a young chameleon who just wanted to be like everyone else. So, unsatisfied with who he was on a particular day, he took on the likeness of every animal he met. Satisfied for a while, he later realized he had assumed the characteristics of so many different animals that he could no longer find himself. As believers in Jesus Christ, isn't this our story at times? We come to believe it is permissible for something or someone other than God to shape our character. In doing so, we become Christian chameleons and compromise our convictions for comfort to be like the rest of the world. Staying true to our convictions and beliefs nowadays is tough to do! The world cries out to us through media, music, literatu...

Hello Sixty

                              R ecently, I had one of those significant birthdays, another milestone, a wake-up moment that reminded me that I don't have forever left - at least not this side of heaven. I don't want to make too big a deal out of skipping from one decade to the next, but how did time pass so quickly? One minute, I am graduating from college, only to realize I now have four years left until retirement. In an instant, it seemed I had shifted from a new mother to a grandmother. Just yesterday, I was driving kids to the pool, hosting sleepovers, packing for camps, and shopping for school supplies. Still, nowadays, I rarely step foot in a pool or participate in any of those other activities. As I reflect on all these changes that came so slowly at the time yet now appear to have happened in a mere flash of light, I am tempted to make an argument for time travel. Not really, but things have changed - r...