I'll End Up Asking For This Again

Mercy. How often do you ask God for that one? Long-life? Health? Provision? Protection? Success? Those are more typical. But David repeats this request a couple more times in this Psalm.

Psalm 86:3 have mercy on me, Lord, 
for I call to you all day long.

To ask for mercy is to know you deserve something other than what you are getting. It’s to acknowledge in your heart that you deserve judgment. You deserve punishment. David seems to try to keep that thought on the forefront of his mind at all times. To ask for mercy is to be humble before God. It’s another way to keep your view of yourself in the right perspective.

I remember speaking one time on the subject of the Flood in Genesis 6. The first thought most of us have of the flood is that it is one of the most wrath-filled stories in scripture, and it is. Yet there’s the boat, bobbing like a cork on the water. Its inhabitants were spared, and they had done nothing to deserve that. There it is floating like Moses in the Nile with no idea where it might stop. For me that ark is a Basket of Mercy, floating over top of the judgment it deserved. That’s really true of me. As I ‘call to God all day long’ I put my faith and trust in him to find mercy…and perspective.

Everyone Belongs,

Paul