“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
I was recently struck by a quote from Dallas Willard: “It is only in the path of mercy that we begin to live in the power of God.”* Willard’s assertion was that our lives become infused with the power of God as we embody mercy toward those around us. Mercy lends to God’s power because God is merciful, so as we walk this path, we are tapping into the redemptive power He longs to bestow to and among us.
Thinking about the notion of mercy reminds me of the Eden narrative and how merciful God’s response was to the couple following their decision to rebel against what God had lovingly provided and instructed (Genesis 3). Upon their disobedience, they suddenly felt shame. They realized their nakedness, and their attempt to hide what now felt exposed and vulnerable resulted in a makeshift clothing experiment of sewn fig leaves. When God saw them, although He could not undo their disobedience or the natural consequences of it, He met them with mercy. His response to their attempt to clothe themselves was essentially to say, “I will help you,” and He supplied a far better covering than fig leaves. God gave them garments of animal skins—a more sustainable and warm covering than the delicate foliage, which would do little to protect them from the environmental conditions they would inevitably face.
God’s provision of these garments profoundly highlights that something had to die for Adam and Eve to receive such quality coverings. And therein lies the divine pattern of redemption we see throughout the entire biblical narrative: humans are invited into God’s loving way of life. As we fail to live into this Way, while God cannot undo our actions, He is willing to help us. He lovingly provides, time and again, a path of merciful atonement and redemption. Significantly, this pattern of divine mercy leads us all the way to the Cross, where God—through Christ—absorbed all the evil in the world through death and conquered the curse of it once and for all through Resurrection.
I am convinced it is Christ’s love that compels us to walk the path of mercy, for it is—in the words of Willard—the path that leads us to live in the power of God.
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*Willard, Dallas. “The Story of the Father’s Heart.” Sermon delivered at Kempton Park Methodist Church, Kempton Park, South Africa, August 16, 1987. The Dallas Willard Podcast, Episode 104.
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