Your Life Situations Are Great Opportunities To Pray for God’s Mercy

I have a friend whose wife is frustrated with him because he is primarily praying for God’s mercy in their various family situations. She wants him to ask for specific outcomes in his prayers. Something like, “Lord, help Jimmy get a good grade on his test today.” “Jesus, help us sell our house by next Friday.” “Dear God, Sarah wants to get a tattoo. Intervene and stop her. Thank you.” “Almighty God, send down your power to revive Johnny’s heart, he is so far from you.” There may be times when these kinds of prayers are appropriate. Yet, his wife might think differently if she better understood mercy. When you understand and experience God’s mercy in these kinds of situations, you find there is no better prayer than the prayer for God’s mercy.

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Think of your life situations as opportunities for God in His lovingkindness to permeate. You don’t really know what outcome is best. But God in his mercy does. Ask Him to be merciful because mercy is healing, life-producing lovingkindness.

Here are some ways to understand God’s mercy:  

• Mercy is God’s faithfulness to you. God is  loyal to every human being and His own. The sun rises on the just and the unjust.
• Mercy is God’s compassion to you. He only acts towards you for your good (and He knows what is good).
• Mercy is God’s lovingkindness to you. In the Hebrew scriptures this is the marvelous word “hesed” meaning, among other things, a love that perseveres to save the beloved. Because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you (Psalm 63.3).
• Mercy is God’s tenderness to you. He is tenderhearted and always acts in tenderness towards you and your life situations.
• Mercy is God’s endearing to you. You are of great value to God. He is doing much to draw you to Himself. He is seeking to win your affection. He wants you for Himself. How is He working in your life situations to bring this about?

Like the blind man who cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” so he could experience God’s mercy in the healing of his blindness. Mercy is healing, compassionate, tenderness towards all.

You need mercy every moment, every day, every circumstance.

Think of one life situation in light of these descriptions. What difference would God’s mercy make in that situation? Ask God’s mercy for _____________.

You need to ask for it. I’ll examine why in the next post. But here’s a hint —  You ask for mercy not because it won’t come to you if you don’t ask. But you ask so that you might enter into it when it is present. 

Do you have any thoughts about mercy in your life? Are you being challenged with new experiences of God’s mercy? Are you praying for God’s mercy? Share below.  

Dr. K