Mercy

Micah 6:8
“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Sometimes, when I read the Bible, I look for those simple catch-all phrases. A single verse that tells me exactly what I should be doing. It makes things a lot simpler for me, because honestly who can remember all the commands God gives us for every situation? In the spur of the moment, I can asure you, I’m not thinking, “Well, Psalms says this, and then in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes what I should do by saying this…”

I mean, get real. That’s painful. I’m really into finding a single one-liner that I can just apply to every area of life.

I know. That’s not very spiritual. But, honestly, it makes things easier. Like one of my favorites is, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Obedience. All God wants is my obedience. I can work on that.

Sometimes, though, things get a little harder to understand. Like this one in Micah I just found. Love mercy? Mercy? God gives us a three-part catch-all, and it requires mercy?

That kind of blew my mind. I had no idea it was that important. But it got me thinking, and man… do you know how hard mercy is? It sometimes is the complete opposite of justice. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is getting what you don’t deserve.

Showing mercy is usually where I get hung up on that love thing. Mercy is what it takes to love someone who doesn’t, by MY standards, deserve to be loved. Isn’t that crazy? It’s as if God broke down the command to love a step further in his Micah one-liner.

It’s really hard, though. Everything around us is about justice, freedom... consequences. I mean it’s a scientific law that every action must have an opposite or equal reaction.

But not God’s law. Not in his law of mercy. If I was following the law of man, I would only love those who had earned my love. Under God’s law, though, I have to love even the ones who haven’t earned it. I have to love mercy.

Knowing that, I don’t have to go through all those mental hoops when I meet someone hard to love. Maybe I don’t always have to find every little speck of good in them and find a way to love them for THAT. Or maybe I don’t even have to conjure up a glorious picture of what they someday could become (after Jesus gets a hold of them, of course). Maybe I don’t have to ignore their flaws, trusting God to iron them out later. Maybe loving people doesn’t take a spiritual dose of optimism, courage, or stupidity.

Maybe all it takes is mercy.