God's Mercy

I have been blessed with an incredible family, spearheaded by two devoted parents that hadn't a clue how to be parents but trusted God and went for it. Fortunately for us, trusting God works.

In a recent exercise, I realized that sometimes we project the relationship we have with our earthly parents onto our image and relationship with our Heavenly Father. I think God uses this to show us a picture of Himself as well. There is one such experience that stands out in my life.

To understand the story you have to know that my dad has always been a very calm, slow-tempered, loving and wise man. I have always had the highest respect for him.

I was 16 years old, learning how to drive a stick-shift on an Isuzu truck...my dad's Isuzu truck. In later years we named the truck "Shrek" because it was green and looking at it head on, the mirrors looked like ears, giving it a "Shrek" resemblance. We went to an open parking lot, I got in the drivers seat and my dad went over EVERYTHING with me. I nodded but was just anxious to try it (I learn my doing). I worked on getting into first gear and once I had that down, he said, "okay, now shift to second." I put my hand on the gear, pulled it down to second and forgot a key step...the clutch. Very calmly my dad said, "okay, stop."

I believe God does this to us sometimes. Ever so calmly he instructs us and we listen, anxiously stepping halfway onto the path but keeping an ear and eye on what He's telling us. We get so excited we just want to be released to try it ourselves without taking the time to really learn what God is teaching us. Then He lets us go and we run off, without looking back and if we do pause, or if we are lucky enough to have God intervene, we can hear Him calmly say, "okay, stop," at which time he corrects and shows us again. This is God's mercy.