Mercy is the creative, forgiving, regenerating, ultimately fulfilling love of God beyond all measure. Mercy is the love that gives us what we lack, that empowers us to accomplish what we can't do by ourselves.
In Jesus God gives Himself. He is the way and the truth and the life. He is our hope for healing and for attaining our destiny. Jesus gives Himself to save us from our sins, and also to give us a participation in the life of God. The life of God! Whoever even thinks about this? Whoever thinks about the fact that Jesus brings not only freedom from sin but also a radical elevation of life to the level of union with God?
We are struggling in these days just to survive, to keep from sinking beneath so many possibilities for anxiety: about our health, about our loved ones, about our schools and places of work, about whether "life-as-we-used-to-know-it" will ever return, about what lies ahead. We might sometimes feel like we're barely treading water in the ocean of our own sanity.
In Jesus God gives Himself. He is the way and the truth and the life. He is our hope for healing and for attaining our destiny. Jesus gives Himself to save us from our sins, and also to give us a participation in the life of God. The life of God! Whoever even thinks about this? Whoever thinks about the fact that Jesus brings not only freedom from sin but also a radical elevation of life to the level of union with God?
We are struggling in these days just to survive, to keep from sinking beneath so many possibilities for anxiety: about our health, about our loved ones, about our schools and places of work, about whether "life-as-we-used-to-know-it" will ever return, about what lies ahead. We might sometimes feel like we're barely treading water in the ocean of our own sanity.
And yet we are called to live forever with God. It's difficult even to begin to grasp what this means. Do we even want this, really? Yes, we have been created to want this, and the Spirit of God is already at work stirring our souls to make space for His gifts, blowing like the free air through our restless hearts. Yet we live on the surface of ourselves.
We must trust in God, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God.
