Parakalein

I was mentoring someone yesterday and the passage "surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life".  I began to hear a whole new way of thinking about that passage as familiar as it is.  This is what really excites my parts.  When other parts that have heard and believed a truth are open to more truth from the same passage just by being open to "Spirit".

As part of the characteristic of a faith person, "goodness and mercy" always follow me into every situation.  It is not just that goodness and mercy are in me all the days of my life but it is also that "goodness and mercy follow me as I live my life.

I approached someone who had really hurt me by spreading a false rumor about me in a clever way as he spoke truth but with a spin that created a lie.  I hate that.  Over the years I learned to live in "goodness and mercy" toward him.  After all he was just like me, a man who could get caught up in believing something should happen then convince himself that anything that makes it happen is okay. A bit machiavellian but inside all of us is a Machiavellian part. Recently 15 years after the event, I met with him and asked him to forgive me for rejecting his friendship which I had done years earlier.  The next time we got together for lunch he asked me to forgive him.  Letting "goodness and mercy follow me" into every life situation is an affirmation of dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.  God's house is a house of goodness and mercy.

I am learning to not just live in it but to let it live in me toward others.