Mercy Came Running

I've been a Christian for a very long time now. I first got saved when I was only 10 years old. I didn't really know what being a Christian meant back then except that I wouldn't go to hell, which I thought was a pretty good deal at the time. I remember leaving church that day and just feeling like I was walking on air. I thought everyone must be able to see how different I was - I was changed! When I went into the church earlier that morning, I was just a plain old sinner and when I came out later, I was a sinner saved by grace. I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But as I walked along behind my mom and dad and little brother to our car and tried to strike up a conversation about this wonderful thing that had happened to me, no one seemed too excited. I was confused, but I didn't ask any questions. I just figured this was one of those things that we didn't talk about - we had a lot of those.

So I tamped down my joy and acted like it was just a regular day, but inside I knew it wasn't. It was a special day. I don't know why my mom and/or dad weren't comfortable talking to me about this great and wondrous thing that had happened to me, but they weren't. My mom downplayed it and my dad just said, "Well, that's good." So I wondered if I made a mistake and was making too big a deal out of it.

Over the years, my parents took us to church sporadically and that flame inside my heart didn't get fed very often. But it never went out. Eventually I grew up and began to find my own way to God. I got married and we picked out a church to call our own. I studied and prayed and found my place in the church. Every time the doors were open, we were there. We were faithful. For years, we were faithful. I thought I understood mercy and grace. I sang about it and taught it and wrote plays about it.

I could never imagine my life outside of God's will and I wondered at people who wandered away from Him. I decided they must have not really known Him if they could leave Him. It made me feel better to think that because if that was the case, then it would never happen to me.

Then one day, I got my heart stepped on one too many times and I walked away. I told God I could get treated like that in the world and that I thought I would just go out in the world where at least I wouldn't be expecting to be treated better. I said, "See ya later, God. I'm going to live in the world." I was the Prodigal Child, walking away from the Loving Father, thinking I knew more than He did. I was angry and hurt and I was through with God. But He wasn't through with me.

For seven long years I kept my back turned to Him. I lived like Hell and every line I crossed made it easier for me to cross the next one. I kept getting further and further away from Him with every step. At times, the thought would cross my mind that I should turn back around and go home to Him. But I would quickly dismiss that thought - I was still too angry and bitter. I ran faster and looked harder for something in the world to make the hurt go away. It never did, it just got worse. I refused to even consider that I was headed in the wrong direction. I came to despise the things I once held so dear. I belittled the faith of others and told myself I had been a fool to believe the things I had once believed. I tried to convince myself that God didn't really care about me or my problems. I rebelled and rebelled again. Still, God wasn't through with me.

My heart grew cold and hard. I believed my anger was justified. I became bolder and bolder in my rebellion. My life was in shambles and I no longer recognized myself. I had become someone completely different. I was a stranger to myself. Still, I wouldn't consider that the reason I was so miserable was because I had wandered into the wilderness and was lost. I wouldn't let myself think that I needed to go home.

All the while, God was holding on to me. He never let go of me. He loved me still, even when I didn't love Him. Gently, gradually, carefully, in His infinite wisdom and patience, in a way that only God can do, He chipped away at my hardened heart and drew me back to Him. I never even knew I wanted to come home until I heard myself saying those words to Him in a church, of all places, somewhere I had said I would never go again. You see, God wasn't through with me.

And now, I am finally beginning to understand mercy and grace. After all these years, after seven years wandering around in the desert, after wallowing in a cesspool of my own sin to the point that I believed I couldn't come back even if I wanted to, I find myself enveloped in God's mercy and grace. I finally see that there is nothing I could do to earn it, nothing I could do to lose it. His mercy and grace do not now, nor have they ever, depended on me. God's mercy and grace are gifts I don't deserve and treasures I could never earn. Even when I was in the cesspool, His mercy and grace covered me.

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there." Psalm 139:7-8

There's a song that says it so beautifully. The words are:

Mercy came running, like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures, to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried was all I could see
When I could not reach mercy,
Mercy came running to me.