Luke 23:32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Luke 6:36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Luke 6:41 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I love the way music speaks to me... right to my heart. I heard a song today, about mercy and searching for it. I feel like that all the time. I look at this world, at the brokeness in my own life and those around me (and on the other side of the globe for that matter) and I think, "Jeez, I could go on searching forever and probably never find enough mercy." Welll, maybe that is true if I am dealing with people. I am so thankful that in my own life, all I need is the mercy of the Lord, and if I am remembering His mercies on me, then I (theoretically) will be able to extend those mercies to the people around me. I will be able to look into my own life and realize just how very much mercy I am in need of if I am to get through this life in one piece. I think of Jesus on the cross... and when He said, "Father forgive them..." He was talking about me. Forgive me, because before I knew Jesus in my heart, as my Savior, I surely did not know what I was doing. And even for a long time after that, it took me a long time to understand that my zeal for Jesus did not mean I should walk around calling others out on everything I thought was wrong in their lives. That is Jesus' job. My job is to love them where they are at, with mercy, grace, and kindness. And then, I will hope and pray that one day, they will come to know Jesus as their Savior and they will understand and be grateful for the great depth of mercy God has for His children.

I thought it was interesting that these scriptures were together when I went looking for those on mercy. It lead me back to thinking about my humanity and how inept I am at seeing things that might be obvious if I was an outsider looking in. Jesus is always outside looking in and He knew that we would need to be reminded of all the extras if He really wants us to be merciful. And He does want us to be merciful... so Luke put those words in his Gospel. Mercy is so hard to come by because we are selfish. We want life, relationships, circumstances to be on our terms. We want what we want, when we want it; without waiting for others to meet us in the middle or for God to work in our lives. We are unable or we just plain do not want to take a really hard look into our own lives to see the speck in our eye. It is painful to remove, no? But it is SO important that we do, because that is what takes us to being more like Jesus, full of mercy.