Yes, Mercy

I'm realizing that I'm not a very merciful person. For one, I'm
extremely competitive. Since I can remember, I've always wanted to
win, and not just win but demoralize and break my opponent(s). And I
never expected, never wanted my opponent(s) to think any different.
When I was in fifth grade, we would have weekly times tables contests.
Being fast at math, I won just about every week. But that wasn't
enough for me; I had to slam my pencil down when I finished, just to
let everyone know how much earlier I was done than anyone else. If
anyone ever beat me, I couldn't stand it, but I respected that person
so much for having won.

Flash forward a couple of decades. I'm pretty hard on myself and on
others. I was late for a very important meeting last week, and it
just killed me. Even though everything turned out OK, I couldn't
forgive myself. I felt horrible for not planning ahead, not
anticipating that I'd need more time to get to the meeting. Again, no
matter that everything proceeded smoothly; I felt I had failed and
didn't deserve for people to wait up for me. And if I had been in
someone else's shoes, I probably would have been mad at me for being
late.

The fact that God is merciful, then, is a truth that is sometimes hard
for me to accept and sometimes so wonderful to receive. On the one
hand, mercy, even from God, is difficult for me to appreciate, because
it seems so undeserved, so unearned, so sloppy and unmerited. I can
relate to the workers in Jesus' parable, who worked all day for a wage
that had been agreed upon ahead of time, only to cop an attitude when
other workers who only worked for a fraction of the day earned the
same wage.

On the other hand, it is because mercy is hard for me that I cherish
God's. For when I consider God's mercy in light of my many failings,
there is a freedom and a security in His acceptance that I seldom feel
but that feels so good. Some days, I shun such mercy because I
haven't earned it; but many days, I love it precisely because I
haven't earned it. The fact that it is from Him, flowing forth from
His character and love and abundance, and not from something I have
scraped together with hard work and superior planning and crafty
ingenuity, that is what makes His mercy so rock-solid, so delightfully
wonderful. I may not be a merciful being, but thanks be to God that
God is.