His mercy endures forever

| Debby_Creates

If you come to think of it, most of us Christians don’t exactly understand the extent of God’s mercy. I didn’t understand. It is, in fact. a little hard to understand, and even when we do, it is hard to remember. After all, we are living in a world that tends to wear us down, with all the things we have to do and worry about.

In a situation like this, we cry out to God, “Lord have mercy on us!” What we fail to remember is the verse,

O give thanks unto the LORD ; for he is good: Because his mercy endureth for ever. ‘ Psalm 118:1

I have read this verse more than a hundred times in my entire life. It’s a verse I’ve memorized for Sunday School. But I never really understood the meaning of the verse.

His mercy actually endures forever. Even in this nightmare of a pandemic, even when Christians are persecuted, even when there’s injustice. God never stops giving us His mercy. I don’t really know the best way to explain this, but I will try.

One night, when I was praying for the COVID situation, it struck me hard. Just because we see the good people go to jail doesn’t mean that God is being cruel. Just because we’re not getting the promotion we deserve doesn’t mean that God hates us, or doesn’t pay attention to us.

The question is: why suffer so much when His mercy endures forever?

The simple answer is that God wants to teach us something. Maybe He’s telling you to depend on His mercy, to remember that He is still merciful and that He’s paying attention to us.

That’s what we should remember. But what does ‘His mercy endures forever‘ literally mean?

I’ll put it simply with an example: we may have mercy on someone. But then that person takes advantage of it to get what they want from you. When you realize this, you’ll stop being merciful and you may even want to punish the person for it.

But God’s response to us taking advantage of Him is the opposite. He never stops being merciful. No matter what you did, no matter where the world is going, He is always merciful.

Mercy is an attribute of God. He is mercy. You can’t change that with anything you do.

Then why do I say, “Lord, have mercy on us”? Simply because I need to remind myself that God still has mercy on me. It gives me reassurance, to put it in another way.

Happy Saturday!

Lots of love, Debs

Grace: The Last Best Word

| Debby_Creates
Grace: the last best word

“Grace is everywhere!” breathed the dying priest in George Bernanaos’ novel, Diary of a Country Priest. It is indeed everywhere, but do we always see it?

“I call it the ‘Last Best Word’,” says Philip Yancey, author of the book, What’s so amazing about Grace?, “because every english usage I can find retains some of the glory of the original.”

Grace literally means “thankful” or “pleasing”. We use the phrase “Grace marks” when, in an exam, we don’t actually deserve the marks, but we get them anyway. Grace is a free and unmerited favour that costs nothing to the receiver, but everything for the giver.

We live in a world of ungrace. A world in which we must work our way up, receive punishment for what we did wrong. A world where forgiveness struggles to live on. A world where those who are the richest, not the poorest are annually listed in a magazine. Grace suggests exactly the opposite. It opens its arms to the wrongdoers, forgives those overcome with guilt and a feeling of unworthiness. Grace comes from outside, says Yancey, as a gift and not as an achievement.

In 1987, an IRA bomb buried a twenty year old woman (Marie Wilson) and her father, Gordon Wilson five feet under the rubble. Her last words were “Daddy, I love you very much”. She died a few hours later. Heartbroken as he was, Wilson said, “I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them.” No one will ever forget what Wilson confessed, a newspaper proclaimed, his grace towered over the miserable justification of the bombers. Remembering his daughter’s last words of love, he decided to live his life on that very plane of love. He met with the IRA, personally forgave them, and asked them to lay down their arms. “I know that you have lost loved ones like me,” he said. “Surely, enough is enough. Enough blood has been spilled.” He was later made a member of the Senate of the Irish Republic. His spirit exposed by contrast the violent deeds of retaliation, says Yancey, and his life of peacemaking came to symbolise the craving for peace within many others.

Forgiveness is the heart of Grace. It offers us a way out. It may not settle the questions of whose fault it is or how fair it is, but however, it allows the relationship to start afresh.

Forgiveness, in fact, says Solzhenitsyn, is how we differ from animals. Not our capacity to think, but our capacity to repent and to forgive. We forgive not to fulfill some higher law of morality, says Yancey, but we do it for ourselves, just as Lewis Smedes points out, “the first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness… when we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner set free was us.”

Forgiveness can loosen the stranglehold of guilt in the offender. Magnanimous forgiveness, says Yancey, allows the possibility of transformation in the guilty party.

Forgiveness however, is not the same as pardon, he advises. You may forgive the one who wronged you, but still insist on a punishment. If you can bring yourself to the point of actual forgiveness, says Yancey, you will release its healing power on both you and the person who wronged you.

Grace does not excuse sins, says Yancey, but it treasures the sinners. True grace is shocking, it is scandalous. It shakes our conventions with its insistence on getting close to the wrongdoers, touching them with mercy and hope.

God bless!