Oh, Mercy!

One of my clients is just getting started in business. She's doing a wonderful job of meeting her obligations, but not all of her customers are doing such a great job of meeting their obligations. The result is that, last weekend, she didn't have any money to buy groceries for herself and her son-although she did say she had groceries enough to get by.

Her neighbor gave her $100.

Problem is that my client decided that she had too much pride to accept it as a gift, so she told her neighbor that she'd treat it as a loan. And that IS a problem.

Ten years from now, my client is bound to come across someone who needs $100 as desperately as she needed it this past weekend. Ten years from now, what will my client remember? In spite of the best intentions, she may remember only that "no one ever gave me $100," and completely forget that what she treated as a loan was intended as a gift. Worse yet, she may remember (with a haughty attitude, of course) that when she was given a "gift," she repaid it. Either way she remembers this event, it will not result in overflowing gratitude, nor in overflowing generosity toward the person who needs that $100.

There is a wonderful, beautiful event that occurs when we are willing to receive mercy. Pride simply must bite the dust when we recognize that we have a need we cannot meet ourselves and then receive what we need from someone else as a gift. When we are willing to receive something we know we don't deserve, cannot repay, and cannot acquire for ourselves, there is a softening inside. Depending on how much of a habit pride has become, it may be excruciatingly painful, but once we've gotten over that, the rest of it is all good. We demand less from others and are willing to give more. We can relax more. Everything is just a little bit more OK.

We've all heard David's psalm a hundred or a thousand times: "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." Lately, however, I've been saying something a little different. I say, "Goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life." I say that because it's true. I'm just not good enough. I can't do things well enough. No matter how I try, I can't be perfect. But I've quit trying too hard, because I've discovered that goodness and mercy are dogging my footsteps. When I overlook something, so often I remember just in the knick of time. When I forget something, so often it works out okay anyway. When I can't do something, so often someone else is able and willing.

Because I'm good? No, of course not! If I was good enough to deserve mercy, I wouldn't need mercy! But if you've got good eyes, that's probably not my shadow you see; it's goodness and mercy, following me.

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