Dear Reader

My oldest daughter was driving home from teaching students one afternoon, when she suddenly saw a car coming out of a driveway on her right. The driver didn’t see her. She swerved, and the other vehicle struck her just behind the front wheel, wrecking the front hubcap, denting the front passenger door, and even some of the back passenger door. By God’s mercy to her and us, she was unharmed. We were grateful for the Lord’s mercy in this respect, but the Lord had something more to get across to us in this.

The driver of the other vehicle gave my daughter his address (he had no phone number), and she left it to me to follow up. It was evening now, and I determined to wait until the next morning. Our car was fifteen years old, and already had a number of dents and scrapes from at least four other “incidents,” each of which could probably yield a story in itself.

In the morning, as I was praying, the Lord told me to show mercy to the driver at fault. He had expressed to my daughter that he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to get his insurance company involved, and I concluded that mercy in this case would be to spare him that.

I found him at home, in a run-down looking mobile home, and I found the experience of dealing with him quite disappointing. Far from being very grateful for mercy being offered, he maneuvered for it by implying that he really wasn’t to blame, that the dark color of the car and the shaded lane were at fault, that we should always have our lights on, and that his insurance was about to expire, and that he had only part-time work (difficult work at that), and more to this effect. All these points may have been well taken if we were disputing fault, but I was offering him leniency from the start. I left with him promising to get me a replacement hubcap (I was going to try to get touch-up paint and live with the rest). When I followed up, he hadn’t gotten the hubcap, and continued his insinuations that he really wasn’t at fault. All in all, it was a very unsatisfactory experience, because the mercy I offered was undervalued, and there was no real basis for respect on my part, or genuine gratitude on his part.

I went on my way wondering if I had really understood the Lord correctly—it seemed like this was the sort of person that would only learn by being held responsible for his carelessness. Then the Lord said to me, in effect, “Now you know what I deal with all the time.” I thought about how the Lord shows mercy to folks over and over and over again, and how much they take it as their due, instead of being grateful and responding. The Lord is constantly sparing people’s lives, holding back on deserved punishments for evil deeds, and appealing to people to receive His mercy while there is still time, and all the time the great majority ignore this, and instead blame God for many of the problems they create for themselves.

I was touched in my heart. The Lord has been very merciful to me, and I was not only reminded of His great mercies, but stirred to want to somehow make up for the ungratefulness of others by being all the more grateful. Oh, I am not worthy of the least of the mercies the Lord has shown to me, but He has shown them to me, and I have received them, and I want to show my gratitude to the Lord by obedience and thankfulness in my life. Please pray for me, that I might be able to show the Lord more of the gratitude that He deserves, and please join me in thanking the Lord for preserving my daughter.

Love and prayers,
The Editor