Mercy feels... it loves... it covers... it runs to help those who are hurting.

For fear of being misread. Let me clarify on my yesterday's post.

I had someone write to me and say, "As for the one who rudely told you about aka Caught, we need to pray for him. Why was he there in the first place?"

Exactly!

We so often are blind to ourselves and our sin. Here Mr. X was looking and lurking and seeing the sins of another, yet he failed to see the sin of letting his "little eyes see" things that they had no business seeing. Then after failing there, as the song continues to sing, he failed again in "Oh be careful little mouth what you say." For one sin often leads to another. He never even saw the trap he fell into. Even worse, he never even knew that he'd fallen. It's that "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own" kind of thing. While we have our eyes on the sin of another, we're oblivious to the monstrous one that looms inside us. Satan is so deceitful and deceptive at his scheming, for while we're excited (though calling it "concern") about the sin in the one we've found that has fallen, we often get caught in the strings of the unseen web... never even seeing the tangle that wrapped around us.

BUT!

I don't want to get all caught up in it too! For who am I to beat my breast and say that I'm so glad that I'm not like him, while he's beating his and saying that he's so glad that he's not like her?

My meaning here wasn't to rip the guy that wrote me the email. But I shared it here in hopes that we would think to perform an inner check on ourselves. So that we might could see if it's something that our eyes have been blinded to... so that we could see if we're guilty of it... and to see if we might need to change.

We do need to pray for Mr. X, but I don't mean for our focus to be focused on him. He's not a bad guy, just blind too. I mostly want us to see ourselves... maybe it'll help us all to see and "be" a little (or a lot) different, more compassionate toward those in need and be more helpful (prayful) instead of so judgmental.

So.

I've prayed for Caught  ~ who's been caught and trapped in her sin and who needs someone to pray. And I've prayed for the one who wrote me ~ that he too might can see and be aware and be sorry for his sin. And I've prayed for me and God's children (the ones that wears Christ's name) ~ for our hearts to beat and love like His, for our eyes to see as He does, for our ears to hear the hurt, for our hands to feel the need to touch, for our feet to carry the fallen, and for our knees to kneel to pray.

May we be reminded of the verse again where Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn what this means, "He said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."

Where is our mercy? Everyone of us need it! And being that we have such need, why are we often so apt to fail in giving mercy to others?

Mercy isn't focused on the sin that's seen, but Mercy hears the cries within. Mercy has compassion for the offender. Mercy stoops to give undeserved kindness to the guilty. Mercy shows favor in its forgiveness. Mercy bends to tend when the one being tended to doesn't deserve it. Mercy understands and sees beneath the circumstances and its goal is to change the end. Mercy can see past the present, because it's seen the past and envisions hope for the future.

Lord, have mercy on me... and then grant me with mercy to give!

• We are taught the song as infants, “Oh be careful little eyes what you see”…. but are we? What does the curiosity inside us really seek to see? What makes us look?
• “Oh be careful little ears what you ear”… but we readily listen to what’s told to us about another???
• “Be careful little lips what you say”….Do our lips that were created to praise our Creator talk about the ones He’s created but not yet saved from the very thing that we find ourselves talking about?
• So, how will that help that sinner? And is our sin any less wrong (any righter to us) than his and what he’s doing or done?