By Chuck Swindoll
Several years ago, my sister asked me a question that I'd never been asked before: "What is your favorite feeling?" Ever thought about that? My answer to her was, "I believe my favorite feeling is the feeling of accomplishment." (Sounds like a driven person's answer, doesn't it?) I like the feeling of getting something done. "Finished" is one of my favorite words.
When I asked her to answer the same question, she said, "My favorite feeling is relief."
I thought that was a great answer. In fact, better than mine! When I checked Webster's later, I found that the feeling of relief means "the removal or lightening of something oppressive, painful, or distressing."
When we are in physical pain, relief means that the pain subsides. When we are emotionally distraught, relief calms us, gives us a sense of satisfaction. When a relationship is strained, perhaps with someone we were once close to, we do not feel relief until we have worked through the painful process of making things right with that person. When we are burdened by heavy financial debt, getting that paid off brings the sweet release of relief. When guilt assaults us in transgression and we seek God's forgiveness, the guilt that ate like a cancer inside us goes away as God brings relief.
Because God is the sovereign ruler over our lives, it's obvious that if we ever have the feeling of relief, God has given it to us. He's the author of relief. He is the one who grants us the peace, the satisfaction, the ease. In fact, I think relief is a wonderful synonym for mercy. Mercy is God's active compassion that He demonstrates to the miserable. When we are in a time of deep distress and God activates His compassion to bring about relief, we've experienced mercy.
Mercy:
Our Source of Relief
The beautiful thing about mercy is that it is demonstrated to the offender as well as to the victim. When the offender realizes his or her wrong, God brings mercy. When the victim needs help to go on, God gives mercy.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins . . . But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Eph. 2:1, 4-5).
"But God," the apostle writes, "being rich in mercy." The connecting link between a holy God and a sinful person is God's love, which activates His grace, which, in turn, sets in motion His mercy. They're like divine dominoes that bump up against one another. He loves us not because of something in ourselves but because of something in Himself. And in His love He demonstrates His grace, which brings forgiveness. And on top of that, grace prompts mercy . . . and there it is:relief!
Some of you have been Christians so long you've forgotten what you were like before Christ. Could that explain why you're still so proud? Maybe that's why the Lord has to spend so much extra time getting your attention. You've forgotten how undeserving you are of His grace. You've forgotten His mercy. Try hard not to forget what life was like before Christ and you will be a frequent visitor at the gate of mercy.
Miseries Relieved
In the Old Testament the Hebrew term for "mercy" is chesed. It is a magnificent word, often translated "lovingkindness" or simply "kindness." When I trace chesed through the Old Testament Scriptures, I find at least five different miseries to which mercy brings relief. It's like that Visine commercial: "It takes the red out." Mercy mysteriously takes the red out of the anguish of your life.
The first anguish mercy relieves is the anguish of unfair treatment.
For an example of this, we have only to look at Joseph, a great and godly man who was falsely accused. Potiphar's wife comes at Joseph again and again. Each time he rejects her. Finally she corners him alone in her home, with the doors locked and the servants gone and the lights low. Seductively she whispers, "Lie with me." Joseph looks her in the eyes and refuses . . . then makes a mad dash for safety. She is so infuriated that she grabs at him, tears off a piece of his garment, and cries, "Rape!" The word gets to her husband, Potiphar, and Joseph winds up in jail, though he never laid a hand on the woman. The story is found in Genesis 39. Then, at the end of the account, chesed appears:
But the Lord was with Joseph and ex-tended kindness [chesed, mercy] and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer (Gen. 39:21).
Where did mercy appear? In a jail cell. In an Egyptian dungeon, the Lord visited Joseph and relieved him of the misery of suffering unfair consequences. God ministered to Joseph's heart and kept him from bitterness. God even "gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer."
