Mercy and Trust

Sunday 3/1/2015 4:44 AM

My psalm for the week is Psalm 31. These verses caught my attention today. “I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not given me into the hand of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. … For I hear many whispering, ‘Terror on every side!’ They conspire against me and plot to take my life.” The psalmist continues, “But I trust in you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.”

In spite of the anguish and affliction of his body and soul, the writer asks for the mercy of God and then simply trusts that God will do what is best. I thought about what that kind of simple trust would look like in a society like ours. My thoughts were jarred from the abstract to the concrete by this prayer from my devotional material, “Lord of all, may we honor you by remembering the great deeds of compassion through which you have released us from the weight of our sin and strengthened us to bless you with our whole being. Let our lives reflect your mercy toward all who are fragile and your justice for all who suffer oppression.” When the mercy of God delivers me from the affliction and anguish of my soul, and I trust God with my life, then it frees me to see the anguish and the afflictions suffered by others. When I trust God with my life, then it frees me to act as God’s agent to be merciful toward others and to seek justice for those who are oppressed.

Rueben Job writes, “Salvation is free, but the cost of discipleship is enormous. … In offering ourselves as fully as we can, we discover the cost of discipleship. For to bind our lives to Jesus Christ requires that we try to walk with him into the sorrows and suffering of the world.” This kind of attitude seems to be contrary to the attitudes of many who call themselves Christian in our society today.

Many Christians blame the poor of our society for their poverty and claim they are simply lazy and unwilling to work without seeing the unjust systems that keep them in poverty. We fail to see the anguish of those who are raised in dysfunctional homes and we fail to reach out in love. Then we blame them for joining gangs or for entering into dysfunctional relationships and remaining in them in their desperate attempts to experience the love we take for granted.

If I really trusted God with my life I would pour it out for the benefit of others. If I recognize the mercy of God in my life instead of thinking that I have accomplished everything myself then I would be merciful to others. Lord, forgive me for being judgmental and for withholding love and mercy from those who are distressed. Give me the grace to acknowledge the mercy you have given me and help me so reach out to others with love in the same way that you reached out to me.