Charis

One of the psalms in The Divine Hours yesterday was 123, which somehow did not show up in my search for scriptures with the word mercy. Here it is:

To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

It’s as if the psalmist is saying, “We’ve had it up to here, Lord! These people around us are awful. Help us out, Lord, help us out!” I can’t say that there’s a single somebody that I’ve got in mind to play the part of the proud in this psalm, but I can certainly relate to the emotions of the psalmist. Continue reading »

Number 3 in a series on mercy.

Studying the word mercy, I see that over and over God is identified with mercy. Not only does He give mercy, He is mercy. In Psalm 145, David praises God:

The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made. (8–9)

And then there are these other passages: Continue reading »

This is second in a series on mercy.

Tuesday, I wrote about praying the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) and how the beginning acknowledges all that Jesus is. I ended with the question, “But what about the mercy part?” and that’s where I’ll pick up today.

I wondered how often mercy showed up in Scripture. It’s there a lot! What caught my attention as I looked at the gospels is that the most frequent occurrence of mercy is in requests: Continue reading »

I never gave much thought to the mercy of God until this past weekend. “Lord, have mercy” has long been an expression of exasperation (as in, “Lord have mercy! What were you thinking?”) rather than a prayer. My first exposure to this was in sixth grade, when we moved to Columbus, Mississippi—my family’s first time in the South. My teacher that year—I can’t remember her name, but I clearly remember her face, her blue hair, and her rather unpleasant disposition—was a good Southern woman, and she used to exclaim, “Laaaw-zay mer-say may!” (translation: Lordy, mercy me!) when she was frustrated. Later, in high school, Sunday school teacher Dave Krebs suggested to us boys that “mercy” was a good word to say instead of a profanity. Not a bad idea, I suppose. The other place that I encountered “mercy” was in games of strength: you extend your arms upward, interlock fingers with the other guy, and try to push him down to his knees, making him cry for mercy.

The upshot of this, particularly using mercy as an exclamation, is that the word was emptied of meaning for me. I knew that it was a theologically important concept, as well as a potentially troubling one, linked as it always was to God’s sovereignty. God said to Moses, “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” and I always wondered how He decided. Since I usually ended up scared when I pondered this, I decided not to think about it at all. So “mercy” didn’t enter much into my understanding of God or into my prayers. Continue reading »

My favorite part of Cooke’s The Secret of a Powerful Inner Life comes early on, as he discusses life in the Spirit and Paul’s declaration that there is no condemnation for those in Christ. Most Christians know this, but my own experience and observation suggest that many Christians don’t really believe it; they have head knowledge—a fact and a memorized verse—but they don’t have the reality of it—belief—in their hearts. Cooke personalizes this vital truth, making it clear and believable:

God does not beat us up over missing it one day. In fact, His love bubbles over for us: “I know the struggle you’re having, but it’s a good fight. I promise, it’s a good fight you can win. Just stop condemning yourself for it. If we don’t win today, we’ll win tomorrow. Every day is a new day, by My mercy.”

The next morning we wake up, and God says, “Okay, it’s a new day. I’ve gotten rid of yesterday; let’s not carry anything forward into today. Let’s have a fresh crack at it, together. I refuse to allow you to beat yourself up over what happened yesterday.”

Meditate on this for a while: can you hear your God and Father saying this to you?