"A Mercy Feast"

"Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah." (Psalms 81:7) Take this number, which is just the other side of the number six, and consider the contrast between the two. God loves to show mercy to His people; all that they need to do is ask, to receive His mercy is just that far away, simply by asking! When you compare the goodness of God against the badness of man, the contrast between the two is overwhelming. Yet, He wants us to feast upon His mercy! We need to realize how much we need to be forgiven, and then bask in His mercy that He loves to offer. There are plenty of places where these different things could have taken place; the edge of the Red Sea as the armies of Egypt were cornering the people of Israel, the base of the mountain where God gave Moses the law, on any number of battlefields; but the "waters of Meribah" is one place in particular. It is interesting that God uses the words "I proved thee," because He proved Himself holy and merciful in this situation, yet He also proved how faithless and rebellious His people could be. We find this played out in Numbers 20:1-13, which is the place where Moses smote the rock, when God asked him to only speak to the rock. The children of Israel had complained to Moses and Aaron, and when Moses and Aaron went before the LORD for answers, God did not cast judgment, but provided mercy on His people. Moses misrepresented God before the people by hitting the rock; not only did he hit the rock with his rod, but he hit it twice. God clearly told Moses to lift up the rod and speak to the rock; yet his action and his words represented judgment and anger, when God was only interested in providing mercy...
"Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn. Once, you Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you instead. Now they are the rebels, and God's mercy has come to you so that they, too, will share in God's mercy. For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone." (Romans 11:28-32) NLT