QUICK TO GIVE MERCY

I've been ruminating on these thoughts all week, jotting down notes, and making a draft.   I hoped perhaps it would work for this week's Five Minute Friday prompt, QUICK - I think it does.   

God is a mother.  He made mothers.  Male and female are made in His image.   

He is a nurturer, a comforter, attentive, always ready with mercy for those who are open to it.   

For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.    Ps 86:5

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us...   Eph 2:4

Because He bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!   Ps 116:2

And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you.   Isa 30:18

That's the model of perfect mothering right there!    Rich in mercy, given in abundance, quick to listen, quick to forgive, earnestly bending down to listen, to be available, to fill our needs with love and tenderness. 

Mothers are a reflection of the nurturing, comforting, tender mercies of God.  Granted, they are often a poor reflection of those qualities, me included, but that's the design.  

When the reality of the mothering we have received falls far from the design, we are left in deficit mode.    Some of us have been left with gaps in our growth, in our maturity, in our identity, in our security, in our peace.    For some of us, that deficit is huge.

What do we do when we're in deficit mode, hunger mode?  

We fill it with something.   If we are starving, physically, we become driven to find food.   That's a built-in hunger that God has placed there for our good.   There are so many stories of people during war times desperate to fill their stomachs with something, anything. 

Soul hunger is just as important.    If our souls don't get the right nourishment, it leaves gaping holes, and we fill our souls with something, good or bad.

If we grow up with parents who weren't able to give us what we need (comfort, love, mercy, grace, help, presence) then we self-soothe, with something.   

Often our parents operated out of a deficit and maybe didn't realise it.   They were doing their best to give us what they had, but it wasn't enough, 

We can't give what we don't have.

We can't teach what we don't know.

We can't share what we've never received.

And we can't love from an empty tank.   

Perhaps, when our neediness put pressure on them, they withdrew or snapped or punished or became hostile, or blamed us for being needy in the first place.   

And so we learnt to keep our needs to ourselves.   We learnt to self-soothe.  We learnt to manage those needs with whatever resources were available to us at the time.   And we did it repeatedly and it became a stronghold for us.   

What are some of the things we self soothe with, that we use to medicate the pain of aloneness, abandonment, fear, grief, failures, mistakes, life pressures?  

Food, entertainment, relationship, education, work, pleasure, the wrong company, substances, power trips, position, fame - there are many possibilities.   

Those things slowly but surely become major coping mechanisms in our lives.   And they fill the holes, to a certain degree.   But more importantly, they replace Him.  Obviously the earlier we learnt to use these things to fill our souls, the more established they are.   The earlier we started, the less likely we were to go to Him.  

It takes a lot of intentionality and growth to get our soul needs met directly by Him, especially if we've learnt NOT to trust because it's not safe.   We have to recognise our walls and let Him take them down.  

So, what to do?  

This week, the Lord led me to these verses:

Every valley shall be exalted

And every mountain and hill brought low;

The crooked places shall be made straight

And the rough places smooth;

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  Isa 40:4-5

God wants to level out the rough places created by the deficit, fill in the holes, bring down those strongholds of self-soothing so we can lean hard into Him and actually find Him, to have those real needs met by a real God who is rich in mercy and quick to give.   

Those verses come just a few verses after this:

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”

Says your God.

“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her..   Isa 40:1

God's heart is to comfort His children, to supply what they need, to fill those gaps, to level off the rough ground that makes it hard for us to walk well.   

God is quick to be merciful to us.    

So, if God is quick to listen and slow to get angry, and quick to fill my soul needs, those gaping deficits that I've tried to fill with other things, what should my response be?  

I need to be quick to run to Him.    I need to not stuff around and default to my long-held coping mechanisms.    I need to not entertain them because they feel familiar and 'safe'.   He's showing me more and more what those coping mechanisms are.  Ouch!!   There are things that are perfectly okay for someone else because they're NOT using them as coping mechanisms, not using them to fill a hole, or medicate soul pain.    For me, they've become my default and they have to go.   

On social media, I follow someone called Shanna Whan, who nearly died from her addiction to alcohol over many years.   She has since has recovered and started an Australian charity called Sober in the Country.   She's doing some amazing work and making real progress, teaching people in our alcohol-saturated rural culture that 'it's okay to say no'  to a beer or a wine.   She's teaching people that for some, alcohol is just not safe in any measure and to let them make that choice with the support of their peers.  

We need to recognise what OUR unsafe coping mechanisms are and why they have become established in our lives.    We need to not be looking at what others are doing, or able to tolerate, but just get honest about what our mechanisms are and why they're there.   

I've been talking to a friend this last few weeks about why we use coping mechanisms and how hard it is to let them go.   This person has made an intentional decision to let the big ones go because they've done a lot of damage.    It's a good decision but a hard one, especially in their current circumstances of huge grief and angst.   Because when we do let go of the coping mechanisms, we are left to feel those things we've been avoiding and numbing and medicating for years with said coping mechanisms.    

I love how God uses the principles you share with others to show you your own need.  I call them boomerangs - they come straight back at you.   

So, I need to be quick to run to Him, instead of being quick to run to the numbing 'medications' I've used for years.  

If His mercies are new every day, then I need to hook into them every single day, every morning before I try and be a reasonable human being, before the day's stresses kick in, before past and current pain gnaws away at me.    

I need to intentionally start my day with my bucket out for Him to fill.   And throughout the day, I need to be quick to run to Him, not something else, when that bucket starts to leak as it does, fairly quickly, in my current season of mothering a teen and a tween and trying to be available to others, including three adult daughters. 

For He satisfies the longing soul, And fills the hungry soul with goodness.  Ps 107:9 

I will hear what God the Lord will speak,

for He will speak peace to  His people and to His saints;

but let them not turn back to folly.   Ps 85:8

I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt;

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.   Ps 81:10  

May we all learn to be quick to just sit with Him, like this song says, and let Him fill those soul needs.  

Beneath the surface

Of my anxious imagination

Beckons a calmness

That is found in you alone

It washes over every doubt, every imperfection

Jesus your presence is the comfort of my soul

There's nowhere I'd rather be

When you're singing over me

I just wanna be here with you

I'm lost in your mystery

I'm found in your love for me

I just wanna be here with you

So let all that I am

Be consumed with who you are

Oh the glory of your presence

What more could I ask for