My favorite scriptural verse for use in prayer early in the morning after giving thanks for a new day is Lamentations 3:22-23: It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. My prayer version goes something like “Lord, It is because of your mercies and unfailing compassions that we are not consumed. Thank you for new and fresh mercies this day upon my family, thank you for your unwavering faithfulness”. My personal belief is that each day has its new challenges and I need God’s new mercy every morning to help me deal with them. Furthermore, in a world that seems to reverberate with natural or man-made disasters and incidents nearly everyday, I am grateful to have been spared of such.
Over the years, as I experienced and learnt about divine interventions in my life and the lives of loved ones that were clearly manifestations of God’s pure mercy, I became greedy for mercy. I have read that God’s mercy is as wide as an ocean and one can get as much of it as one wants, it is there for the asking. I read that some people approach the Throne of Mercy with a spoon, while others come with a cup because their expectations of what Divine Mercy can accomplish is limited.
Well, at some point, I decided that I would go every morning with a bucket! I considered myself an Apostle of Mercy and frequently shared my experiences of God’s mercy with family and friends to encourage them. Overwhelmed with gratitude most times, I began to ask God to help me to become a vessel of mercy, to share some of His generosity to me with others. It was not always easy, but I frequently dwelt on how I was most undeserving of God’s kindness to me and mine and asked for Grace.
In the last year or so, my greed grew as I went from approaching the Throne with a bucket to telling God every morning that I wanted to soak myself and my loved ones in that Ocean of Mercy so that we could be saturated with it. I just could not get enough of it. I still prayed to be alert to opportunities to be merciful to others but more often than not, I missed those opportunities.
A few weeks ago, I got into one of those silly arguments based on a clear misunderstanding of something I had said with a loved one. I had to deal with that person a few hours later and was extremely reluctant to do so. The next morning as I asked God once again to be saturated with the day’s new mercy, I got a realization that there was no space for new mercy because I was still saturated from the previous morning!! I had not let out any air (mercy) and had no capacity to take in any more.
The logic was simple enough but this was still an ‘aha’ moment for me. How many times had I heard that it is better to give than to receive? And we are not even talking about material giving here but giving of oneself, giving of love, kindness, time, comfort, understanding, prayers, forgiveness etcetera especially when the recipient is undeserving as I am always undeserving of God’s generosity. These are all opportunities to let out of some of the mercy I saturate myself with every morning.
Well, these days, my new spiritual mission every day is to be on the look-out for opportunities to disperse God’s mercy so that God-willing, I can be eligible for new mercy the following morning. I have come to realize that I do not have to be merciful only in person-to-person interactions but also in the way I think or speak about people. I am even learning to be more charitable in my thoughts or comments about people in authority (read-heads of governments) that I have never really cared for.
So, the necessity to create space in my life for new mercies every morning is changing the way I think, speak and act. Is this a good motivation? I don’t think so, I wish my kindness and generosity could be inherent traits and not because I’m worried God will not show me mercy if I fail to show mercy. Never mind the many scriptural references to that fact. But this much I know, the changes in me are authentic and my desire to be merciful to others is sincere because I cannot fool God. And this much I believe, the Holy Spirit is able to turn (and already turning) my somewhat selfish motivation for doing and being good into a motivation of just desiring to please and glorify God. Did someone call that A Purification of Motivation? Oh well!!
Hilltop Thoughts, Valley Strengths 