The Secret Password: Mercy

I am a great fan of specifics in prayer petitions and always encourage those I pray with to be specific in their requests, as long as we conclude the prayer with a submission to God’s will. Exercising our spiritual authority to decree and declare our temporal wants without humbly acknowledging the caveat of God’s will is a pathway to frustration. Let He, who holds our tomorrow in His hands,  have His way in all that concerns us.

In the story of blind-from-birth Bartimaeus, (Mark 10:46-52), his opening cry to Jesus was not for healing of his eyesight, but for mercy. And when the naysayer-followers of Christ tried to silence him, he cried louder for mercy. I have no doubt he would have continued shouting out loud for mercy, over and over, until Christ looked his way. It was only after the bell of mercy was rung, and the passcode of mercy punched into the automatic lock that Jesus opened the locked door and asked for specifics – how can I help you? What exactly can I do for you?

Of course, Jesus could see that he was blind, but now He wanted to see how much faith he had. This is when ‘ask and you shall be given’ operates in a fail-proof mode. Bartimaeus could ask for money to feed for a year (which any wealthy man could give), or he could tap into the Power that he had acknowledged and ask for the impossible. We can get as much as our  faith and humble boldness asks for, if it pleases God. Bartimaeus got his sight and the story became a celebration of personal faith.

We all are invited to come before the Throne of Grace to find MERCY. (Heb. 4:16).  It is after we receive mercy, that we get grace for our specific need. The plea for mercy is the code that unlocks supernatural blessings. This passcode implies our understanding that we do not deserve all the good that we get from God, on account of our constant shortcomings. God answers us only because of His merciful nature. It is pertinent to point out that before Bartimaeus walked over to Jesus at the door of mercy, he shed himself of his extra clothing. We also do well to shed that extra baggage that trips us up when we want to do the right spiritual thing before we approach the open door of mercy with our specific requests.

One final takeaway is the realization that there will always be followers of Jesus who, not understanding the depth of our faith, will try to discourage us from crying out loud for mercy and shove us in other directions. We need not be mad at them, they are also being used by God to test our faith, fervency, patience and perseverance. May we always pass our tests of faith in the face of opposition and discouragement without offending God. Amen. We do this only by Divine Grace.