Grace and Mercy

A couple weekends ago God was speaking to me about something I didn't really want to hear. I've been reading through the Gospels again (you really can't do that too much or too often) but this time much, much more slowly than ever before and the Bible I've been using is a chronological one. One morning I read a part from Luke 4 after Jesus went to His home town and read and taught from Isaiah:

“All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips. 'Isn't this Joseph's son?' they asked.
“Jesus said to them, 'Surely you will quote this proverb to me: “Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”' Luke 4:22-23

My parents are proud to share that when I was a baby they had me dedicated and the one who did the dedication was the founder of their church, John Robert Stevens. They also love to brag that my dedication became something special for my dad; JRS laid hands on my dad and prophesied that he would be a prophet of love.

I've heard this over and over throughout my life but over the years it has lost its special flavor and become moldy and unpalatable.

A prophet of love, eh? Show me, dad, where's the love in your family? How do you show your love to your family? Oh, wait, you messed up, didn't you.

“Physician, heal yourself!”

I'm pretty sure I want as much ammo against my dad as possible so I have excuses not to engage in a relationship with him. But then God started showing me about the difference between grace and mercy.

Grace is God's (and our) ability to forgive. Mercy is what that relationship looks like after the forgiveness happens. Grace and mercy are both a two-way street.

In order to accept God's grace, we must recognize that we have been living in sin, that God has every right and reason to reject us, but that, if we accept His forgiveness, we can receive His grace and live in a right relationship to Him. The “right relationship” is mercy. Once we have accepted His grace, we can have a relationship with Him through prayer, reading our Bibles, and fellowship. But we must be able to accept that His grace gives us the opportunity to relate to Him, and then be willing to spend time developing that relationship. God never withholds grace or mercy from us; what He wants more than anything is relationships with His children.

Then He tells us to forgive and live in “right relationships” with one another. I have been working on extending grace to my dad but I have been very unwilling to extend mercy. In other words, I am withholding myself from a relationship with him – in a sense, punishing him for being a weird and distant father.

This doesn't mean that our relationship should look like every perfect father-daughter relationship, or should be everything he ever dreamed it could be. God can give all of Himself. Often we cannot – and I think that's alright. When my dad calls me “baby” or kisses me on the back of the neck, he makes me feel uncomfortable; we're not that close and I can't pretend that we are so I have every right to ask him to stop. Still, I should find time to sit down at a meal with him and have a conversation, maybe call his phone every once in a while to see how he's doing.

I don't need any more ammo against my dad; what I need is to obey my Lord and remember what it cost Him to give us Himself. He wanted relationships with us so badly that He was willing to give up His Son's life. His Son asked us to be like the Father, forgiving and being merciful to one another.

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:36

I'm not giving myself excuses but it's really hard to put into practice. When I'm around my dad I feel nearly repelled by him; I want nothing to do with him at all. A friend of mine recently said, “Pray about that specifically! Pray about it a lot.” And so I shall.

I finished “Bright Evening Star” by Madeleine L'Engle and I strongly recommend it. I have requested another of her books from the library because I liked this one so much.