MERCY
He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you—Love Mercy. –Micah 6:8
I found over the decades of ministry that one of the greatest needs of people is mercy. Human beings are incredibly weak, frail, and prone to make mistakes. I think of David in the Psalms, and the many times he appealed to God’s mercy and compassion. Mercy is mentioned more times in Psalms than any other single book in the Bible. Where would we be without God’s mercy?
I reflect on this often in my marriage. Several years ago, I wrote an article entitled The Greatest Gift My Wife Ever Gave Me. In that article, I shared that Kathy believing in me through all the years of difficulties, hardship, and my attempts to lead our family was her greatest gift to me. I have now come to believe that, quite possibly, an even greater gift she gave me is—Mercy. I have failed countless times over the 47 years of our married life. I am deeply humbled as I think back over my married life—the unkind words, my impatience, my unkind actions, my harsh spirit, my words spoken in anger, the times I was foolish, my bad attitudes, and my many failings. Over and over again, this amazing lady has shown me overwhelming mercy, compassion, and unconditional love. The truth is our marriage would have failed long ago without this essential, vital ingredient—Mercy. Where would I be without Kathy’s mercy to me? No other person in my life has shown me such Mercy! Her mercy and understanding with me and my struggles have been an extraordinary gift to me!
Mercy gives a person what they don’t deserve. Mercy extends grace, kindness, and understanding to the human frailties, weaknesses, and the failings of the person we love. Mercy extends compassion to our loved one in the suffering and difficulties they’re experiencing. Mercy is one of the greatest ways we imitate God towards our mate and family.
May God make us people of great mercy.
*Update/Correction–Recently, I had a tech specialist do some work on my Strong Disciple website. He discovered that the digital counter of my recorded message downloads was not giving me accurate information on how many total messages have been downloaded from my site, because bot downloads were also showing up in the counts. This makes the cumulative total number of messages downloaded, that I shared in my recent article, Edition 409, statistically inaccurate and unreliable. I had no idea this was happening. I sincerely apologize for this error.
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
