**…he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. ** Psalm 32:10
Today’s verse and post is about mercy as a recompense for trusting in the Lord. As we trust in the Lord, His mercy surrounds us. The Lord is always merciful with us but this verse seems to say that His mercy is even more present in our lives and covers us before, behind, above and below us. It fully encompasses us.
He is merciful before we make a mistake, and after we make a mistake, it is hovering over us at every moment and smoothing our tracks as we go. We live in a bubble of mercy, when we trust in Him.
Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. When we trust in the Lord, we firmly believe that He is reliable, true to His Word, and able to fulfill His Word and His promises in our lives. He is our faithful and diligent caretaker.
In the beginning, we need to trust Him when He says that salvation is in His Son and that once we trust in Him, we don’t have to think about how to be saved again. We move forward in learning to trust Him when He says, well, anything…..that He will provide for us, that we can cast all of our cares and worries on Him, and that when we have a thankful heart He will give us peace.
For several years, I believed in God, and believed what He said. But trust was a separate issue for me. Because I wasn’t always happy with the outcome of His promises to me or the timing of them. The Bible says that ** He hath made every thing beautiful in his time **…not in my time and I didn’t like that.
The Bible also says ** And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ** I have never liked the process of waiting for things to be good or to understand the purpose of our trials. I was and still am not always good at trusting Him with all of that.
But even when we take baby steps in learning to trust the Lord in all things, He mercifully engulfs us with His mercy hug. He does not punish us for not trusting Him. He rewards us for every positive step we take towards trusting Him a little more.
By now, we all know that mercy is my favorite characteristic (and topic) that the Lord has. Just thinking about it for a minute fills my heart with gratefulness. If I gave myself a score between 1 and 10, I would score myself a 10 on my appreciation for His mercy. If I scored myself on trust, I might give myself a 4. But that just means I am even more grateful for His mercy!! The Lord doesn’t punish me for not trusting Him. He rewards me for appreciating His mercy and then sends me blessings of trials to strengthen my level of trust in Him. And that just gets him giving me more mercy!
It is always a win/win relationship with God. He loves us, we love Him. He is merciful to us, we are grateful. He asks us to trust Him and He is patient to allow us to learn how to do that, one step at a time.
Win/win.