He did
something wrong. He was taken to court and all evidence was against him. He
deserves to go behind bars, to die. People all around him are pointing fingers.
They want him punished as his crime was heinous.
He was
you.
M-Mercy
Haven't
we all been in situations where we did something wrong? We deserved the
punishment that was coming but we kept longing and looking for love and
acceptance. We longed for mercy.
In the early days of his presidency, Calvin Coolidge awoke
one morning in his hotel room to find a burglar going through his pockets.
Coolidge spoke up, asking the burglar not to take his watch chain because it
contained an engraved charm he wanted to keep. Coolidge then engaged the thief
in quiet conversation and discovered he was a college student who had no money
to pay his hotel bill or buy a ticket back to the campus. Coolidge counted $32 out
of his wallet -- which he persuaded the dazed young man to return!
-- declared it to be a loan, and advised the young man to leave the way he had
come so as to avoid the Secret Service! The young man was reported to have paid
back his loan later!
Justice is getting what we deserve.
Mercy is not getting all that we deserve and grace is getting what we don’t
deserve.
In any relationship, when we learn to be
the mercy giver, it gives a new lease of life to the wrongdoer. It’s true that
they deserve to get what’s coming at them, but when we learn to be merciful coupled with forgiveness and compassion, it enables the wrongdoer to change
his/her ways. It forges the relationship to a deeper level than what it earlier
used to be.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
Take
Away Principle: Mercy
enables the wrongdoer to change his/her ways thereby forging the relationship
to a deeper level. Mercy bears more fruit than justice.
Tips
on Mercy:
1. Choose to be a
mercy giver.
2. Put yourself in
the place of the wrongdoer.
3. Don't be quick
to judge people on account of what they have done rather be quick to forgive.
4. Give the person
a second chance. Understand that there might be deeper roots to why they are in
the wrong.
