"Merciful Father"

"The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Psalms 145:9)

  As mentioned yesterday, this is the difference between the personal relationship and love we can have with our Savior, and the Savior's mercy that is upon the world, as in, "For God so loved the world." Let me share with you how God works, as I was praying for God to give me something to be able to illustrate how this might look. Yesterday morning I was listening to Rush, being curious what he was saying about the elections the night before; and as he went to commercial, I saw the clock and that it was 11:46 and Pastor Jon would be sharing on another station; so I switched to listen. What I am about to share, I know that I will not be able to share it as good as Jon did, but I think I can at least get the picture presented the way that I saw it. In this story, there is an engineer who is in charge of raising and lowering a draw bridge which is for a train to go over the river. As it turns out, there is a Amtrak train approaching that is filled with passengers, and the bridge is currently up. The engineer knows that he must soon lower the bridge, but it just so happens that his 3 year old son is with him that day; and as he is beginning to lower the bridge, he discovers that his son is not with him. So, as any father might do, he panics and looks for his son: finding him down below, wandering around down where the bridge gears are located. He calls out to his son, but he either does not hear him, or is too distracted to pay attention. He finally realizes that he has no time left, and that he must lower the bridge because the train is to close to stop and there are many people on board that he must save; but if he lowers the bridge, his son will be crushed in the gears. With a extremely heavy heart, he pulls the lever, and the bridge comes down just in time for the train to go over, safely to the other side. As he just stood there, numb and terribly heartbroken, he watched as the train went by; seeing the passengers inside, many of them were looking and waving at him, as tears were steaming down his face; they were totally clueless to the horrific choice that he had to make, and how fortunate that they were that he made it. Anywho, that is that...

"Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the LORD'S presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our back on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." (Isaiah 53:1-5) NLT