Life Can be Wonderful? 5 – Even When I’ve Been Wronged
Mercy is a crazy thing. We all know what it looks like when we see it given to someone else. We all know what it is like to just want a little mercy for ourselves. It is right there but so elusive also. Because, mercy lies in the hand of the one who can share it or keep it. In Matthew 5:7 Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” So what does this mercy thing do to us or for us when we share it with someone else?
I tried to explain what mercy is with our students at the Garage Youth Ministry. When we were talking about it some said it was forgiveness, letting someone off and not holding them accountable for their mistakes. As we talked about it another statement Jesus made came into our conversation. Matthew records a troubling thought from the mind of Jesus. It goes like this, “But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” Think about those words. They scare the crap out of me. Can my forgiveness truly block the forgiveness of God for me? I can’t really tell you the complete answer on that question.
The amazing thing about my job is that most of what I believe is easy to talk about, but extremely hard to live out. I think that is why so many people have a hard time with religion and those who are believers. Jesus sets the bar pretty high for his followers. We can talk about having mercy and forgiveness for others but then we have to actually practice it in real life and that can be the hardest part of following Jesus. This theory was never tested for me more than this last summer. I would tell you the details but that would not be very merciful would it?
There was a person who said some pretty awful things to me several years ago. Because of their words I decided to not attend my father’s funeral. It was a moment that left some scars in my soul. Fast forward to this summer and they walk into my church after all these years. As we talked after the service I kept thinking I should say what I’m thinking and let them know how I really feel. Then those words of Jesus came back to me and I realized that I needed to show mercy and forgiveness. I walked away knowing that even I it was tough I had done the right thing. Now if I could only learn to do that every time my life would be more grace filled.
I often think of mercy as a cold drink on a hot West Texas day. It is when you feel like you cannot go on any further and someone offers you a cold drink. All the heat and thirst seem to slip away from us all at once. It is the same when we receive mercy from someone else in our lives. So thinking about that cold drink of water let’s look at what it means to hold the pitcher of cold water someone else needs a drink from.
The question is will you keep your pitcher empty?
Colossians 3:13 says to “Be gentle and ready to forgive, never hold grudges. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” The funny thing about pitchers is that eventually they will be empty if you pour out of them. You have to keep your pitcher full by going back to the source when you first filled it up. We need to remember that we can show mercy because it was shown to us by God. He can give us more mercy and keep filling our pitcher with his grace. We just have to make sure we do not let our pitcher get empty.
Remember that God has the biggest picture of all.
I believe one day that we will see God face to face. He is going to ask us who we shared mercy with? I think He will already know, but there is something about being asked a question by someone who already knows the answer. My mother was good at this when I was a kid. She knew what we had done; she just gave us one chance to come clean. Life was better if you just came clean. I learned her skills and then have used it for years on my two sons and now in our youth ministry. If we show mercy then God will show mercy to us and He has a big pitcher of mercy that he is willing to share with us on our hottest of days. I really believe that he is going to share it on that day we see him face to face.
Remember when you fill someone’s glass you refill your own pitcher
Proverbs 11:17 says “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.” So it is crazy to think that when we share mercy with someone else it does something to our own soul. It is sort of the endless pitcher that we can refill with our own acts of kindness for others. Sharing mercy with someone else is sharing a cool drink. Sitting on the front steps and spending some time together enjoying some shade and that cold drink. It makes our souls full when we share mercy with those who need it the most.
Are we ready to bless not only someone else with mercy, but to bless ourselves by this act of mercy? I know this about mercy I have never loved it more than when I need it the most. So if I share mercy and it brings more mercy to me later, then I will share all the mercy I can. Besides, it is the closest to being like God we can every get.