Grace & Mercy

For several weeks now, I have set a "chat date" with God every workday at a specific time. This allows me to work my crazy schedule around this time period and still keep my routine of spending time with the One who keeps me on the straight and narrow. These conversations have become some of the sweetest and hardest times of my day - depending on what we need to discuss together. Together, God and I spend time praising Him, recognizing all He does in my life, asking/pleading for those around me (and around the world) that need Him, asking for His help in areas of my own life, and sometimes just sitting together and enjoying being with just Him and I. I started this as a challenge for myself to see if I could do 21 days in a row. Now, it's one of my favorite things to do every day and I don't want to miss a chance to sit with My Father!

Recently, during one of our 'chat dates,' I had a conversation with God about some failures I've had in my daily walk. I was feeling bad about willingly choosing to test the boundaries He had set for me, and about hurting Him. I spent some time the following day sitting with Him and understanding why His ways are better than mine. But in the course of that conversation, I realized that I didn't actually know the difference between His grace and His mercy.

Those two words are so often said together, or even inter-changeable, that I'm not sure I ever understood what they meant. So, while sitting at the feet of my ever-loving & ever-forgiving Father, I did some studying. And, since I'm sure I'm not the only one who grew up hearing these two words said side-by-side without understanding their unique beauties, I thought I'd try and share a bit of what I learned with anyone reading along with me.

Being how things work in the world today, my first step of learning was to google, "difference between grace and mercy," and reading through the AI summary of answers instead of reading through the dozens of websites that came up. LOL! The AI answer was pretty clear: "mercy is not receiving what we deserve (punishment), while grace is receiving what we don't deserve (blessings)." This was the start of my conversation with God. Why are these always pushed together when they are actually quite different?

Mercy is what He was giving me in that moment. Mercy instead of the separation from Him that I deserved by choosing my own will over His. Mercy instead of isolation and silence. Grace, allowing me to still come and sit before Him, despite my sins and failures. Mercy is a gift all of it's own beauty - the ability to still call myself His child when I should actually be shunned and divided from the flock for deliberately choosing to disobey Him.

Mercy is forgiveness instead of punishment.

Grace, however, is on-going beyond the moments of failure and pain that I cause my God. Grace is every day, all day. Grace is the amazing opportunity to serve Him at Abba's House every day, even though I am not fully qualified. Grace is having a loving family in America willing to let me live with them when my visa situation seems to carry on and on. Grace is having my needs met every day, beyond what I can work for myself, and the needs of our children and staff met, beyond our efforts as a team. Grace is, simply put, is the joyous giving of a Father to His children, just because He can.

This does not mean that grace and mercy were not both a part of my current situation. His mercy cleansed me instead of punishing me. And His grace allowed me to continue being His child and in His presence. But, by grouping them as a pair so often, I realized that I had been minimizing their power. Mercy stands strongly on it's own in times like this, where my flesh wins out and my soul is crying for help. And Grace floats by as a shadow of it all. Whereby, in other situations, Grace is the one with the power rising proudly to showcase His loving generosity, while Mercy waits to play it's role again.

Grace and Mercy are both such necessary parts of the Christian walk. But I just wanted to share with you some of the lessons God showed me by taking the time to separate these two siblings into their own identities. I hope this helps someone the way it helped me, to see just how amazingly detailed and beautiful our God is!