Mercy Mercy Me

 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered. 

Proverbs 22:24 

Hatred stirs up conflict, but love conquers over all wrongs.

Proverbs 17:14 

It has been a long week of pondering the meaning of Easter, and also a challenging week peppered with the opposite of what Easter means. If ever I felt a tug-of-war in my life, it was last week and if I'm being honest, the entire year prior. I have felt moments of great love and peace, and then moments of anger and unrest. 

I wrote a blog awhile back about anger being heavy and grace being light and I believed every word of it or I wouldn't have written it. I have spent time reading about the fruits of the spirit, and knowing that these are the keys to dealing with difficulties in our lives and with difficult people. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and perhaps most complicated one for me lately-self-control. But as I've been dealing with more difficult people and difficult situations, I can't help but feel a little "difficult" myself. 

Mercy was something on my mind as I read the book of Matthew last week. As Jesus performed his miracles and chose his disciples, he faced all kinds of doubters and well, just plain idiots who just accused him of all kinds of lies. His friends turned on him, though he was in actuality God, sinless, and the One who would ultimately give his own life for their sins, their mistakes, their lies, and their abuses against him. And then turn around and forgive them for it. That's some amazing mercy, and Jesus wanted us to focus on that, and not just his sacrifice. He knew we would all face this same kind of treatment and He told us how to deal with people who would do the same to us. He taught us many things on His Sermon on the Mount, the most important being practicing love and humility in dealing with others. Have I conquered this yet? A resounding no. I fail every day. 

Love your neighbor as yourself

Galatians 5:14 

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 

Romans 12:3 

I have found so many different challenges in confronting difficult people, and as a Christ follower, it doesn't automatically mean the answers are right there in my head to get it right every time.  My pride gets in the way sometimes.  I get my feelings hurt too. When my family is hurting, and I feel I need to come to the rescue, I sometimes can't be as objective as I should be. To be honest, I have a bit of the hot temper in the opening verse. I can go all "brass knuckles and nun chuks" IN MY MIND before I actually respond. I want to get to a place where anger and heart palpitations don't precede my eventual common sense, mostly peaceful responses. (depends on the day, folks) I have to get to a place where I talk to God about this part of me way before this feeling happens, because it often surprises me how angry I can feel about injustice and unrighteous things. 

My prideful defense is that I invest a lot of my heart into people. I do. And I let them go on and on about the things they "believe in", sometimes for years, all the while staying pretty quiet and neutral about my own opinions, beliefs, and thoughts so as not to "upset the apple cart", most likely. It wasn't until last year when I had enough spikes driven into my heart about everything going on in the world that I couldn't stay silent anymore, and I spoke my mind finally THIS year. And somehow, all that friendship I offered all those years, all the praying and support, encouragement, and history went down the tubes because I simply. didn't. agree. with. them. No one likes to reject or feel rejected for any reason, and a disagreement should never lead to rejection, but in this past year, conversations were very difficult with certain people and so walking away seemed to be the answer in many people's relationships, sadly. 

Sometimes grace and mercy needs to be given to yourself as well. Of course we are all allowed our own opinions, thoughts and feelings about anything we want. But in my idealist mind, I thought because I accepted their differences, they would accept mine. It doesn't always work that way. People sometimes only "love" you when you stay in your box they made for you. Like one said to me, "I can't share my daily life with you because you agree with all the things that bother me." What a dagger this was to my heart. Let's give up on our friends who have always put us in an important position in their lives, prayed for them, cared for them, and showed concern for them, simply because we don't agree with them. Sad. This is the world we live in now, where we trade in good people for political stances or as one person put it "their hill worth dying on". But friends, we can't replace good people and your favorite candidates won't be there crying with you when you lose a family member. That's the reality. 

God has given us an abundance of love, grace, and mercy, and He did it while we were still sinners. When I think about who He died for and how He was tortured, spit upon, laughed at, and left to bleed to death-all for those sins, and yet in His pain, He forgave them all. Wow. He forgave us all. He forgave the friends who have turned on me, the boy who just shattered my daughter's heart again and again. The terrible boss who mistreated my husband, the liars, the cheaters, the mean people, the horrible people. The difficult people. We may not want these people in our lives for good reasons, but because of His great mercy, we can forgive them because of who He is and because of who He made us to be. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

Romans 5:8