Lately, through God’s providence, I’ve had the opportunity to explain “MERCY” to my kids. I’ve taken those opportunities to also explain “GRACE”. I’m no theologian (to be clear) I’m just some lady making notes about what I see…
When I pray, I always thank God for HIS never-ending grace and mercy in my life; however, having some time to think about HIS blessings, it occurs to me how easily taking grace and mercy for granted really is. Especially, in an unbelieving world.
Grace is defined as, “unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The same dictionary defines mercy as, “compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power”. The terms were more simply explained to me as: Grace, is God giving me what I don’t deserve, and Mercy, is God withholding what I do deserve. However, in an unbelieving world with no God, mercy and grace are non-existent.
Grace is explained away with terms and ideas such as, “luck” or “I was in the right place at the right time” or “coincidence”. Mercy is explained away easily because, well, we don’t really believe we “deserve” to pay for our iniquity. This world will tell you that if there are no absolute truths, then, you may not have done anything wrong. You may have done, “what was right to you at that moment” ‘what felt good” or you were “following your heart”. That, my fellow-humans, is music to our ears! We can explain away anything at all because there is no right or wrong. Hazaaah! We love that there is no sin. That everything is subjective and in an eternal state of gray. Undefined and not specified. THAT… lulls us to sleep and we become sheep to the slaughter.
Wide is the gate.
As humans we’ve come up with fantastic stories we tell ourselves. Like, “it’s not my fault” or, “I didn’t mean to do that” or “I didn’t know any better”. Sadly, the further along our human walk we get (absent from God) the more we believe ourselves.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is, Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Why? Why is that one of my favorites? Because, I need the constant reminder, because I cherish the loving correction, because I know that if I get distracted for a split second with the seductions of this world then I will forget what I need to fight against on a daily basis: my deceitful heart.
The parable of the 2 debtors in Luke 7:41-42 (but don’t take it out of context, read all of Luke 7) is a constant reminder of why this world, and my children included, cannot wrap their heads around mercy. If you don’t believe you deserve eternal punishment then God’s forgiveness means absolutely nothing to you. Or, if you don’t believe you owe anything (to keep with the theme of the parable) then what do you care that your debt was forgiven?
My children are lavished with grace and mercy on a continual basis. It is painful for me to witness that on many occasions, they don’t even realize it.
I guess that’s the real question. If we are raising a generation apart from the principles of God, apart from universal truths, apart from defined rules of right and wrong, then how can we ever expect them to understand the concept of mercy? If you don’t know you’re sick, you don’t know you need a doctor, right? And it doesn’t even mean that your quality of life is going to suffer… you don’t know any better. You’ve been “just fine” since, well, forever. How are you supposed to know that 1 visit to the doctor can forever change your life? You don’t know you need to go!
BUT… what I do see some believers doing (bless their hearts) is yelling at the top of their lungs, “YOU NEED A DOCTOR”… but they themselves seem pretty sick. Our yells being void of love or real concern or transparency are just straight up annoying AF. (in case you don’t know)
Everyday, I wake up and am given 1 more opportunity to not fail HIM. But I do. Daily. I’m the worst of these… and yet, HE loves me. HIS grace and HIS mercy are the only reasons that I’m still here… functioning. Because scripture is clear, the wages of sin is DEATH. That’s what I deserve people! That’s what we all deserve.
Every time one of the kids says, “it’s not fair” I tell them that they better thank God that life isn’t fair. Because if life were fair then we’d be on a cross, that’s what we deserve, that’s fair.
Mercy and Grace. Two words that mean everything to some, and nothing to others.