All That He Is

A Reflection on the Psalm for February 23rd, 2020:
​Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Psalm 103

R. The Lord is merciful and gracious.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits. 

R. The Lord is merciful and gracious.

It is the Lord who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. 

R. The Lord is merciful and gracious.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 

R. The Lord is merciful and gracious.

As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

R. The Lord is merciful and gracious.

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Who is the Lord, and why does it matter that He is merciful and gracious? Why should I believe that He has compassion, forgives, heals, and redeems?

As humans, we are very transactional in our relationships, and one of the great challenges for me in my faith has been to understand more deeply that the great mercy and love of God is not withdrawn because I made a mistake. To hear that God loves me is a nice and comforting sentiment, but how do I know that for sure? 

Someone I know once referred to Jesus being an “imaginary friend”. Indeed -- if God’s not real, then it is a figment of my imagination that He is merciful and gracious. If God’s not real, then it becomes nothing but a comforting illusion that I am forgiven, and therefore I feel better. This is, indeed, a foolhardy position to assume. But if God is real, there’s a difference -- there’s no fooling myself. 

In my experience, it makes all the difference that God is real and that He is interested in my well-being. If God is Love, He wants what’s best, not only for me but for everyone. If God is Truth and Justice, I can look to Him for direction. If God is Conscience, He wants to help me to see the Truth and understand where I go wrong. If God, who is Good, is with me, then He gives me Courage. If God is Courage, He is there to help me confront difficulty, even shame and suffering, with confidence and strength. If God is all those things as well as Mercy, He gently helps me to learn fully and well, without fear of punishment.  

And so it follows, Jesus is true God and true Man, who spoke truth with love, who knew things He shouldn’t know, who at once convicted and healed with a glance or a simple touch. Jesus, the embodiment of mercy, was hated by human power and endured a merciless death so that we might see the gravity of our sin... and He miraculously rose from the dead as the final evidence that courageous love matters most, even more than life itself. 

There is a very real expectation on God’s part that I not only acknowledge His sovereignty, but also His mercy; and it is only then that the grace begins to flow. Otherwise, it is simply a battle of wills, or a scorecard of achievement and reward; God against me, and me against everyone else, like in any interaction where I want to be the winner. It has only been in my ongoing surrender to the will of God that my eyes have been opened, that I have truly been healed of my transgressions, that my relationships have been restored, and that my joy is complete.

Let us pray:
Lord, thank you that Your very nature is mercy and grace. Help us to see that the cost of the decision to participate in the joy of Your endless grace is simply our humility. Amen.





Lindsay Elford

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

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