“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice).
I believe that one of the biggest sources of resistance that prevents us from seeking mercy from the Lord is that we project our own flaws and weaknesses onto Him. We look at our own lives and the times that people have betrayed or disappointed us, especially those who have done so over and over and we notice a pattern. Even if they say they are sorry and even if they say they will never do it again and even if we love them, or try to, we will notice that no matter how hard we try, we will become impatient or frustrated or angry that they can't just get it together and stop hurting us so much. The first few times we might have had empathy for them and told ourselves that they didn't know better or they're genuinely upset that they hurt us and want to make things right. But if it keeps happening then not only do we lose the desire or the capacity to dispense mercy, but we dredge up all of the times we tried to forgive them and thus are wounded afresh. And so, if we feel this way, then we imagine that Christ must feel similarly with us. But He doesn't. He never gets tired of dropping mercy down like the gentle rain upon us. This isn't because He's a masochistic glutton for punishment. He's not weak willed or simple minded. We're not getting one over on Him, nor is He being insincere or patronizing us when He forgives us, even when He and we both know we're going to sin again. Christ loves to forgive us because He understands that Mercy is twice blessed. Mercy blesses those who give it and those who take it. We may feel like we can't repent because we have brought pain and a cursing on our Savior. But when we repent, we give Christ an opportunity to be blessed when He forgives us and Has mercy on us. There is more joy in heaven over a sinner who repents because there are now twice the blessings and twice the joy. Heaven is blessed and rejoices for having bestowed mercy on us, and we are blessed and can rejoice for having received mercy. I hope that we never delay or miss a chance to bless our Savior by sincerely repenting and allowing Him to shower us with mercy. Let us all work a little harder to double the blessings by giving and receiving mercy as often as we can.
