Daily Manna · Day 191 · July 10
God Who Pardons
“Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.”
There are one or two failures you have never said in a whole sentence, even to yourself. They sit in your memory like a drawer you keep shut, and every few months it slides open on its own, maybe while you are driving.
Think about where Micah is standing when he writes this. He has spent his whole book on a country where "The good man is perished out of the earth." The prince and the judge ask for bribes and get them, and "a man's enemies are the men of his own house." He has watched the whole nation come apart. Then, near the end, he stops accusing. He looks at every god on offer in that world and asks a question that is almost a taunt: "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity?" It is also a play on his own name, which means "Who is like the LORD?" He has carried that question in his name his whole life, and here, in the last paragraph of his book, he answers it.
Look at the verbs he chooses. The word "pardoneth" means lifting a weight and carrying it away, the way you would take a heavy load off someone's back. To pass by "the transgression" is to choose to look past it, to decide not to hold on to what has already been seen. The phrase "he retaineth not his anger for ever" admits there is anger, and then puts a limit on it. The reason is short: "because he delighteth in mercy." Mercy is something God enjoys. One verse later Micah says, "thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea," down where no one can bring them back up.
Notice who is pardoned: "the remnant of his heritage," His own people. The way in is by belonging to Him, and nobody gets in by earning it.
So the drawer is yours to open, and nobody is standing over you. If you want to, tell God the thing using the real word for it, and not the softer one. Then read those last words again, "he delighteth in mercy," and let them be about you. You are welcome to stay there until you believe it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 191 is The Whole Matter (Ecclesiastes 12:13).