“A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger…”
Exodus 34:6

As we are entering the new year and making choices and changes, one thing that I am being challenged in is how I view God. And I thought that I would invite you along in this journey with me. Aren’t you excited!?!

As humans, we are generally not merciful and gracious and growing up in my family we were definitely not slow to anger. You know that line in “Father Of The Bride” where Steve Martin says: “We come from a long line of over reactors.”? Well, that was my family. Let’s just say there was no lack of fireworks and explosions.

So for me, I didn’t quite get the “slow to anger” part about God. I tried to do everything I could to not make Him angry. Yes, I would ask for His forgiveness when I messed up, but it took a long time to see Him not totally frustrated and throwing His hands up. What He wanted, above all else, was for me to come to Him with my mess and brokenness. For me to know that His mercy and grace was right there.

We tend to ascribe to God the attributes we have as humans: holding grudges, cold-shouldering, silent treatment, holding things over others heads, etc. We do God a great injustice. We can quote scriptures about His mercy and grace and take it as indifference, that it really doesn’t matter what I say or do…He’ll love me. While it is true, that His love is paramount, our actions still have consequences. He is not indifferent to our sin. We forget what we are seeing is His mercy and grace, giving us every opportunity to turn from our sin.

The beginning of Exodus 34:6 God is passing in front of Moses: “…proclaiming his name, The Lord, the Lord is merciful or compassionate and gracious…”.

God is proclaiming, with His own words, who He is. He is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger.

It has taken me years to change how I react. I repeated what I saw and heard. It wasn’t until I saw fear in my kids eyes that I knew I didn’t want that for my family any longer. I had to change the trajectory of our family and that started with me changing how I viewed, well, everything: God; me; sin; anger; mercy; grace; forgiveness, etc. etc. etc. It is slow and hard work.

But God is in the transformation business! He loves it when we come to Him and give Him full access and permission. He knows who we are and His first thoughts about us are of love.

Dan Ortland in his book: “Gentle and Lowly” says: “…The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool in the wake of it.”

If we truly want to change, we need to start with how we view God and our relationship with Him. We will only change to the degree we are honest. Forgiveness, healing, wholeness cannot come where we are hiding and pretending.

Last week I shared one of my favorites: Deuteronomy 7:9. The part where it says: “…keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations…” His mercy, compassion and grace is not a one-and-done deal. We can’t use it up. It is never-ending.

If you, like me, have had a hard time seeing how much you are truly love, know that His heart is to pour out His mercy and grace not His wrath. I pray that you will take a step towards Him and you will risk being honest with where you are at. God will meet you there, I have no doubt. He has met me a million times!

I hope you have an amazing day!
All My Love ~
Jodi xo

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