Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us.
God is rich in mercy to we who are not. Author Dane Ortland writes in Gentle and Lowly that nowhere else in scripture is God deemed rich in anything. Only mercy.
I’m guessing one of the reasons we have such impoverished views of mercy is because we don’t recognize it. We forget how we were once dead in sin. Or we think of God’s mercy as having a limit.
Or we fail to see the simple mercies that follow us every day (Psalm 23:6). Mercies that teach us about the bigger mercies. I was doing some writing this week in the Student Center at the college where I teach. After a couple hours, I took out the jump drive from my laptop, popped it in my tote bag and headed home.
But when I arrived at my house and looked for the jump drive, my heart sank. The drive contained all my morning’s work—with no backup. And it was nowhere to be found. I frantically searched my now empty bag and retraced my steps. I drove all the way back to school to see if I’d left it on the table or dropped it in the parking lot. Even went through the trash can, thinking maybe I’d inadvertently cast it into wasteland oblivion along with my coffee cup. All I came up with was smelly hands. Very smelly hands.
Of course, I prayed. But by this time, I was feeling pretty despondent (and stupid for not having a backup). I decided to look through my bag again for the umpteenth time. Guess what. I discovered a side pocket I’d never noticed before. There, the missing jump drive lay snugly hidden.
But God, being rich in mercy….
Some may call it coincidental; I call it evidence of God’s simple mercies. He didn’t have to. I certainly didn’t deserve to be a recipient of his help. Considering so many other things going on the world, it hardly registers in importance. But it was important to me, and because of that, it was important to God. Ephesians makes it clear that God’s mercy flows from his great love for us.
He wants us to get it. And he pours out simple mercies to help us. I pray we would recognize many, many more of them.