The Justice and Mercy of God
“Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.”
This year we are spending time as an AFReG community delving a little deeper into knowing our God better. Our hearts are drawn to knowing His ways and how each of us might anew “…with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory…” (2 Corinthians 3:18). This is especially needed anytime our souls wrestle with the weighty ideas of justice and mercy, which are much needed in the broken world in which we find ourselves these days. Even more importantly, we’re seeking to better discern how the Lord reveals Himself to us when the need for mercy and justice takes center stage in our lives.
In Psalm 57, Scripture uses David’s plight as he has fled from Saul and found himself hiding in a cave, crying out to the Lord. David seeks both mercy and God’s just intervention in his circumstances. Whether we like it or not, we are all scheduled for regular times in our “caves of calamities.” It’s simply an inevitable part of our best Christ-journey as His servants, but we don’t want to miss the lessons or opportunities to encounter and know our Lord better!
Remember to testify of God’s place in your life. “…my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge…” (v1). David is taking refuge in a cave, but he sees more clearly that God is our real and eternal refuge, and he testifies to that reality of our Lord!
Remember the spiritual comfort we receive when God is glorified. “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let Your glory be above all the earth” (v5, 11). This is how David reconciles his circumstances with God’s mercy and His just dealings with frail humanity. We have found that during difficulties or challenges where mercy is needed, or we wait for justice to be done on our behalf, the Lord delights to bring us to the “unveiled” reality that as long as God is exalted, it is well with our souls. When the reality of who God is and the reality of His rightful place in our lives is affirmed, when He is glorified regardless of our temporary trials—the eventual disposition of our circumstances need not worry us over much!
Remember the Lord, in His mercy and justice, delights to glorify Himself in the deliverance of His people. We think this is why David begins his Psalm with a cry for mercy but ends with a request for God to be glorified. Christ being lifted up physically, and more importantly spiritually, was for those that place their trust in Him an unveiling of the truth of divine glorification through the deliverance of all who place their faith in Him. This is our Savior’s divine mercy and justice made one in our deliverance through Christ’s glorification and His completed work on that cross (John 3:14; 8:28)!
Our hope and prayer are that when (not if!) we find ourselves in need of divine mercy and justice deposited in our hearts, let us look no further than the finished work of Christ. For in remembering and acting upon the divine revelation of He who our Savior is, we might, like David, remember, testify, and glorify the Lord!