Readings:
Numbers 11: 4-6, 10-16, 24-29;
Psalm 19: 7-end;
James 5: 13-end;
Mark 9: 38-end

Collect:
Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Reflection - The Mercy of God

I wrote about the goodness of God in my last reflection for Watling Valley Weekly. I mentioned the three levels at which we experience the goodness of God, these are natural blessings, kind interventions and assurance of salvation. Another character of God that goes hand in hand with his goodness is the Mercy of God. 

The mercy of God is one of the most precious realities in the world, one of the most revealing themes in all the Bible, and one of the most tragically misunderstood truths about God. If we want to know who God really is, if we want to peek into his heart, it is not the display of his just wrath and cosmic power to which we should look. Rather, we should set our eyes on his mercy, without minimising the fullness of his might, and take in God’s life-changing panorama.

Many of us today are prone, by nature and nurture, to see God’s mercy as peripheral or incidental to who he is. We suspect that perhaps he shows mercy by accident or weakness. But if we let the Scriptures have their say, we will see that when God shows his mercy, he does so with utter intentionality and strength, and we as his creatures get our deepest glimpse of who he is not just in his sovereignty but his goodness. Not simply in his greatness but his gentleness. Not only in his towering might but also in his surprising tenderness. 

In the generations after David, Israel fell into a spiral of moral decline. Eventually came the bleak moment Moses had foreseen as inevitable in the hard and wandering hearts of the people. In 587 BC the Babylonians besieged, conquered, and decimated Jerusalem. It was the most tragic and horrific moment in all the Old Testament. The city was so famished and desperate that women boiled and ate their own babies (Lamentations 4:10). Into these blackest of times, the prophet Jeremiah penned the darkest and most despairing verses in all the Bible: the book of Lamentations. Chapter 3 is the heart of his lament, where the pain is most exposed, and hope seems almost lost. Yet even here, faith shines forth as the prophet gets a glimpse into the heart of God through his mercy.

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:19–24)

In the very time and the very place where God’s people would be most tempted to abandon hope, the prophet points to the mercies of God, never ceasing and new every day.

Mercy reveals how just and fair, yet loving and compassionate, God is. My anthem to my children is “You are always forgiven, and never loved less.” I don’t want them to associate who they are with the mistakes they are bound to make every day. Mistakes can do a number on our self-esteem if we don’t stop to breath “God” into our situations and remind ourselves we are His children.

Our God is not simply sovereign, wonderful as it is to celebrate. And he is not only a God of uncompromising justice, thankful as we are that he is. He is the mercy-having God who invites us to look not only at his awesome authority and sovereign strength, but to set our eyes on his mercy and see into his very heart. 

I want to encourage you to entrust yourself to the God who gracious and full of compassion.

Adedayo Adebiyi