“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). “God’s mercies are new every morning” (Lam.3:22-23). “Judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:12-13)
Heavenly Father, we who share in this daily prayer community wake up in different time zones in the world, with different rainfall averages, different veggies in our markets, different music filling the airways, different fish that can be caught, and different challenges that we face. But the one thing we ALL have in common is the gift of your daily mercies and our calling to be generous with those mercies.
The most emotionally-healthy among us needs your mercy, and the most aggravating, ungrateful, and wicked are not beyond the reach and riches of your mercy (Luke 6:35). Father, to whatever degree it is possible for redeemed unglorified sinners to be as merciful as you are, that’s who we want to become.
We lament and repent for being too easily irritated, offended, and impatient. We confess what you already know: It’s easier for us to be impacted by the ways people “miss,” “diss,” and hurt us… than it is for us to live in grateful, humble awe of the way you love us in the Gospel.
Teach us how to show mercy in our healthiest, kindest, most caring relationships. We don’t want to take those relationships for granted, and just “cruise.” And teach us what showing mercy looks like when we feel like we are being used, manipulated, and “played.” And how to “show mercy mixed with fear”—hating the sin, not the person (Jude 1:22-23). Help us, free us, love through us, Abba. So Very Amen.