GRACE AND MERCY

A wise person once observed that grace is when God gives us something that we do not deserve and mercy is when God does not give us what we do deserve. But, then, none of us needed a wise person to make this observation for us. We have observed up front and personal in our own lives, most probably on a daily basis. The sad truth is that we are usually not aware of most, if any, of this.

We are blessed, you and I, and abundantly so. And, for the most part, we take these blessing for granted. Now we will not be so bold to assert that we deserve these blessings from God, although we sometimes act as if we do. It seems it is only on those rare occasions when we stop, step back and reflect about just how blessed we really are that we realize that we have done little or nothing to deserve what we have received except for the grace of God.

Why are we so blessed, so graced, while so many others around us and around the world are not? They did not do anything to cause their loss of blessings and we really did nothing to merit ours. All we can do is be thankful, grateful and humbled by how blessed we are and do all we can to help those who seem, and certainly are, so deserving of God’s grace but are not. That is not so say they are not blessed. It is to say that when we compare our blessings with so many others, there is no comparison and it simply does not seem fair.

The other side of the coin, if you will, is the realization that God, in God’s infinite mercy, has spared us from much pain and suffering that we truly did deserve – and continues to do so. It is almost as if we have a guardian angel steering us away from the places and people that will lead us down the wrong path and cause us pain and suffering. Even more, when we ignore those angelic warnings and get ourselves into a real mess, for some reason God spares us from much, if not all, of the pain we deserved.

God’s mercy saves us from ourselves. And like the realization of just how blessed we are by God’s grace, it is only when we stop and reflect how often God has spared us from the pain and suffering our words and actions truly merited that we are thankful and grateful and humbled. Again, it does not seem fair that others suffer more than they deserve while God’s mercy saves from the suffering we truly do deserve.

Grace and mercy: God’s constant gifts that, if you are like me, we tend to take for granted and overlook. My guess is that God does not expect us to be constantly aware of God’s grace and mercy but simply to pause every once in a while to reflect just how active God has been as is in our lives every day. What God does expect, or at least hope for, is that we are thankful, grateful and humbled. It’s the least we can do. But it is a starter. At this moment in time, if we’ve never or hardly ever reflected on God’s grace and mercy, it may be enough, may be. Enough said.