Mercy in the Heavens

Some people find a verse like this too easy. Anybody can say that God's mercy is huge. It costs nothing to say, and by Thursday it has changed nothing. Most of us have heard it so often that it no longer reaches us.

So look at what the verse is answering, because Psalm 36 does not begin here. It begins inside a man's head: "The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flattereth himself in his own eyes." That is the first picture. A man is shut inside his own running commentary about himself. He passes judgment on himself, and he believes his own verdict. The psalm spends four verses in that closed room. Then, with no warning at all, David looks up at the sky.

We know that room better than we would like to admit. Many of us keep a private count of how often God has forgiven us. We have worked out roughly where the line is, and we assume that past it God has heard this confession from us often enough. We call that being realistic. In truth it is the same closed room the psalm has just described, only with better manners.

What breaks the room open is a change of scale: "Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." The next verse keeps going: "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep." David is saying more than that God is generous. He is telling you that you have been measuring God's mercy in a room with a low ceiling, when His mercy reaches past the clouds.

So bring Him the same thing you brought last week. Bring the very same one, without the speech about how you know you have been here before. His mercy has not shrunk since then. Then get up and make the repair the confession was avoiding. Make the call, make the apology, or sit down with the person you have not really looked at since it happened.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 306 is Once to Die (Hebrews 9:27).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna