Ephesians 2:4-5 “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

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I grew up in the shadow of a military training base. My Boy Scout leader was a drill instructor.  Many of the adults in the periphery of my life were in the military. My father was in the Naval Reserve and wore his Senior Chief uniform proudly. He tried to keep my brothers and sister shipshape.  Everything had its place, and everything should be in that place. To his dismay, it was seldom as he would expect. I grew up with absolute expectations of proper behavior and most often came up short of my father’s spit and polish.

I have spent years living and breathing in the world of expectations of other people. I lived in constant threat of disappointment to the socially acceptable norm.  My ingrained nature is one of trying to live up to someone else’s imposed expectation.  I failed a lot. Trying as I might, I could not be what the world expected because their expectations never included mercy.

I have found a new life. Now I live in mercy. I have experienced it.  I have cultivated it.  I have a great need for it. I cannot exist without it. And when it becomes a part of me, my life finds truth, purity, holiness, peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, and victory. My years of living in this great mercy cause me to show mercy.

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Lord, remind me again and again that in your mercy I need to show mercy.

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