mercy in our hands

I've almost finished Jackie Hill Perry's new devotional Upon Waking, and her fresh perspective on unchanging truths has been such a gift this season. 

This morning she pointed out to me the obvious truth that God's questions to mankind aren't His way of finding out missing information or satisfying curiosity, but are for the benefit of the one being questioned alone.  The first question, of course, was asking Adam and Eve where they were that afternoon in the garden, though we know God's head wasn't turning to the right and left in wonder.  

In asking "Where are you?", God was really asking, "Why are you not near?" or "Why is there distance between us when all there has ever been is love?" or "Where are you in relation to me?" 

He wasn't asking them to know. He was asking to bring them near.

What a mercy it is to be questioned by God, she pointed out, a theme that has been coming to me frequently.

His mercy in Scripture is as repetitive as the sunrises, clear to us, looking back, that often what was seen as God's silence or God's distance or God's unkind allowance of suffering was actually His MERCY holding their hands. 

If it's repetitive throughout His Word, it must be repetitive in our lives, and if in looking back His mercy is clear, than I can trust that His mercy is holding my current situation tight.  I can trust that His mercy is holding my hand...dragging me out of the city as it did Lot and his wife and daughters, guiding me to water as it did Hagar in the wilderness, bringing me out of slavery as His mercy heard and brought Israel up out of Egypt dancing.  His mercy in my life must be the same powerful mercy that caused Jesus's hands to hold firm against that wood for their nails, the same mercy that has seen many brought to His throne, the same mercy that met Paul in shipwreck and in pain. 

So what is God asking us, dear ones? 

His most common question to me--whispered over messes and pains unsortable--is always Do you trust me? He knows the contents of my heart already and isn't wondering over my allegiance. 

But He often seems to want ME to remember that He is trustworthy, that He is my answer, that mercy is in His hands.

So as I lifted mine Sunday, the altar where I not long ago put my arms around my dad in prayer in front of me once more, He reminded me that in my empty hands are His. In my palms is His tender mercy. In His questions are His unfailing love. 

And when our hands are dripping with His mercy and love, we can climb higher still with Him, not looking back. 

Where's His mercy evident in your life? And what is He asking you of the places it appears to be missing?