A Surprising Blessing

I have a wonderful testimony of the mercy of God and of His people...but, as nearly always, I'll attach, to it, a prophetic rant.

To paraphrase Rich Mullens:

When He says, 'Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy,'...He ain't just puttin on the ritz.

Reading the Gospels, it seems to me that, under normal circumstances...nearly all circumstances...to be a disciple of Jesus requires a person to be a net producer of mercy.

That is, a follower of Jesus is a person who shows mercy more than s/he receives, in the course of this life.

This is what scares me about our religious system, focused on healthy pastors, churches and churchly institutional leaders.

That system turns church-goers into consumers of religious products and services...

...consumers of mercy.

Read the "Beatitudes." Read Matthew 25. Read, well, the story and teachings of Jesus.

Not good.

In our community here, we teach being a net producer of mercy. We LIVE it, as best we are able.

My experience, though, is that, the more one shows mercy the more one receives mercy from others.

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So, the day Evie came home from Penn, I went to the store that I work at to pick up a few things and one of my coworkers told me that there was an envelope for me at Customer Service.

I picked it up.

The envelope had my name printed on it and, inside it, was $50 in cash. Nothing else. No note. Nothing.

What a blessing!

From whom it came, I didn't know...don't know.

Later, I heard the story behind it.

During a previous trip to the store, I went to the cash registers to pay and my coworkers avalanched me with questions about how Evie is and I am.

I paid.

Apparently, the next customer...someone they recognized as a sort of regular...asked for $50 cash back, then handed it back to the cashier and said, "Can you see that that man who was in front of me gets this?"

All the prophetic ranting aside, that act of mercy represents our story during this journey.

God is so good. His people, some of whom do actually go to church, are wonderful.

We are so blessed.

We feel loved.

Honestly, we've probably turned down more offers of assistance than we've been able to accept.

I'd never want anyone to go through this, but even in this valley of the shadow of death,...

...especially in this valley,...

...we've come face to face with His mercy and the goodness of the people who love Him.

God is good.