“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:36; “Speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment without mercy awaits the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:12-13
Heavenly Father, thank you for being the Father of mercies and God of all comfort—the God of limitless patience, inexhaustible forbearance, and incomparable compassion. Instead of giving us what we deserve, you gave us Jesus—who is our perfect righteousness, everlasting peace, and greatest joy. Hallelujah, many times over!
As you extend mercy to us, so you call us to do the same for others. Sometimes that feels unreasonable—even impossible, and, apart from the Gospel, it is. The instinct to slap (at least with our words) comes easier than the commitment to deal with an offense redemptively.
We own being easily irritated and offended. We keep records of the ways people hurt, fail, and disappoint us, more easily than we overlook, forbear, and forgive them. Our offence-memory is often better than our Gospel-memory.
Show us what mercy looks like with it seems we’re being exploited, manipulated, and “played.” You aren’t calling us to be passive doormats, but you are calling us to be active foot washers. Our cry is, “Help us, Abba, help us.”
Teach us the difference between having good, healthy boundaries, and building walls with electric barbed-wire on top. Empower us for loving in the broken places. Love is costly, yet you “pick up the tab.” Father, thank you for your promise of daily mercies, sufficient grace, and more grace. So Very Amen.