Are You Getting Your Daily Dose Of Mercy?
Good Morning Friends,
I was reading through some of Shakespeare’s comedies and was reminded how much their inspiration must have been religious and spiritual even beyond the culture in which he lived. I have come to the conclusion that Shakespeare had a wonderful insight into the power of dreams and the limits of justice in a corrupt world…the limits of his writing. Still he sought in his writing to bring a little heavenly grace into the reality of the world. Oh he could not come right out and say it. That would have been too painful and so he wrote comedies that when interlocked show the drama of life and I think his journey of faith in the face of politics and culture and the church. Indeed the plays As You Like it, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest should really be read and seen on stage as a trilogy on the interplay between heaven and earth, the supernatural and the actual, in the lives of all of us, whether or not we are trying to make sense of this experience. In these three plays we see life as all a stage and we actors in it. The audience is of course God. We become plays within plays with the hope of finding sermons in stones shouting in witness to something in our nature to give us hope. Here the author writes mercy into the story line for each of our three brains with a canvas that stretches the Globe. My hope would be that you could see they are unified through an incarnation of the heavenly supernatural world into our world as a witness to ultimate grace. They all show forth an overarching principle of the mediation heaven on earth and the hope that at the final curtain we would get applause from heaven. But on the way we need to be sustained and so today’s question much like the interlocking theme of those plays: Are You Getting Your Daily Dose of Mercy?
Scripture: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.
Isaiah 43:1-4
Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9-13 (NRSV)
and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Matthew 28:20 (NRSV)
Message: Today’s scripture and my thoughts on Shakespeare I hope take us on journey of how God’s compassion for the corporate is extended to the individual. We begin to see how the love of God, the motive behind it all, goes beyond sympathy and empathy to action. We experience an action that tells the truth in love. We are shown this love that we have been graphed on to, His love for His agents of the world’s salivation, His inexplicable fidelity to His covenant… the ultimate mystery of God’s grace, gifted by Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit, given to us the body of believers. We too have been elected to play a part, chosen… the Author of life has called us by name and we have become His people and He remains our God. The Word becoming flesh, and our thoughts taking physical form in our own transformation. We get to play a part in the play and indeed take the lead in our own life’s journey. And here like the Shakespearian plays we are gifted a goodness that triumphs over all reason. We have been given mercy in a way not unlike that which is crafted into those Shakespeare’s comedies. Here God’s compassion is grace, and His love manifested in the face of everything which appears to make it impossible. Hopefully we too experience a sea change between the creation and the redemption, the beginning and the end. When the human condition appears hopeless we have God’s daily mercy. When we receive the compassion and mercy of the Lord in our life it acts as a foundation for our faith to grow and with our faith, patience that the Lord will complete the work He has started in us. This perspective, this foundation, changes everything. It impacts us and others when we show compassion and mercy as well when we get lucky…when we dream… when we are transformed. Here our reality is limited to the words we can use to describe it… one really has to experience it. Still words can help in ordering our thoughts anew around what we experience. Shakespeare was good at this but Jesus even better. It is my hope for you that he write mercy into your storyline.
Pray we realize that when we give thanks for all the opportunities that come with each morning that we begin to experience the mercy and compassion embedded in each new day. Pray we understand the message of life…mercy…forgiveness and love.
Pray we lean toward forgiveness and mercy. Pray we are transformed. Pray at the end of the day heaven applauds the work of Christ in us.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 