A Lesson in Mercy

It was hard to shake off the terror and the image of the headlights careening toward us.

It was a pleasant afternoon. We picked our oldest daughter up from college for the Thanksgiving holiday. Lunch and a trip to the mall would complete our afternoon. After shopping on one side of the mall, we scrambled into the van to drive over to the other side. At the stop sign, I waited to turn left. Once my vehicle entered the lane, I suddenly realized I had turned onto the wrong side of a one-way road. I panicked, but it was so short, I thought I'd quickly drive through so I could merge into the correct lane. Apparently, however, a pickup truck spotted my error, flashed its brights and sped up as if to crash into us. I smashed down on the brakes and the horn. It stopped maybe a foot away from us.

What the hell was he trying to prove? my thoughts screamed. I drove around him and soon was on the right path.

Inside a brightly lit store I trembled and sat on a chair, while some of my daughters shopped. I spoke to the manager about what had happened. She sympathetically listened and agreed that four-way stop was confusing, especially with no lights.

It was hard to shake off the terror and the image of the headlights careening toward us. On the way home the image whorled around my mind like a spinning bike tire.

Though I was still furious with the truck for placing us in mortal danger, I realized I had made the error. He wasn't in the wrong lane, I was.

Maybe he thought I started celebrating Thanksgiving too soon and was too inebriated to drive, and he was trying to scare me straight.

Maybe he had a lead foot, and it pressed on the accelerator.

I don't pretend to know his intentions, but the incident cracked open an insight to mercy.

How often have I rushed to set someone right because they were in the wrong?

How often have I criticized people for their actions, especially when I had no understanding of their intentions?

For those of us who don't know what mercy is, here's a useful definition: 

compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or 

other person in one's power.

Yet, right is right and wrong is wrong. We know the Ten Commandments, and Christians are taught how to live. People breaking these laws often create misery for others. Me driving on the wrong side, albeit I didn't intend to do it, could have caused an accident. Where were the police to give me a ticket and sobriety test? (I would have passed since liquor hadn't touched my lips that afternoon). What kind of crazy driver was I? Was I above the traffic laws? Didn't I care about other people?

We don't even have to read a newspaper or turn on the news to learn about the horrors committed on innocent people. Drunk drivers destroying entire families. Married people committing adultery, destroying their marriages. Employees embezzling from their own companies. Sexual predators. Robbers. Murderers. Drunks. Losers. Filth. Evildoers.

Why couldn't that truck driver have shown me mercy?

For those of us who don't know what mercy is, here's a useful definition: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power (dictionary.com).

Mercy doesn't say the offending behavior is okay. It doesn't excuse injustice. But Christians who wish to model their lives after Christ must apply the same mercy He applied to us.

Father forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34 NABRE).

When we're learning of some travesty, more would be accomplished spiritually if we could pray for the entire situation and all those involved instead of maligning the guilty perpetrators. Of course that is easier to do when you're not in the midst of the horror. Some people, however, not only showed mercy, but have forgiven their enemies. If they can forgive people who have tried to kill or injure them, is it too difficult for us to say a silent prayer instead of grousing about the evil in the world?

I am grateful to be alive to write this blog today. The truck driver doesn't even know who I am, and when you show mercy through your prayers, most people won't even know it. God knows it and approves. If He didn't why would he have said, Blessed are the merciful for mercy shall be theirs?