Lord, you know the heart and soul of this little boy. You know where his seizures are coming from and how to help the doctors pinpoint their origin. You also know how to take care of this whole situation without the doctors.

May Your grace, mercy and peace extend to him this night. May You be glorified in his healing. There would be no other way to account for his healing this night than Your power if he was to be healed. You do not need any further glory, but it would be great to be able to use this situation to offer that glory.

I also pray for his parents. You do know what can be gained by them from this situation. You know the possibility of bonding that exists for them. You know how they can use this time for calling out to You for help. You have promised that You would respond to those who call out to You with their whole hearts. May this be one of those times for both parents.

You also knwo how to introduce peace into such a time as this. Your peace, that passes all understanding. Your peace, that lies beyond the boundary of human experience. A simple falling into Your arms, knowing without doubt that You can, will and have stepped into this situation and brought Your promise of presence into play.

Lord, our hearts are knit together this night with hope based on faith in Your promise to be with us at a time like this. You know that the only member of this family I know is Tracy, but the bonds of Christian love go beyond familiarity to that oneness that comes from Jesus Himself.

So I pray for the father of this boy. I pray for his brothers. For Austin who had a 20th birthday that went uncelebrated yesterday in the chaos of what's happening with Jesse. Lord, You know of Jesse's faith that You created him as You did for Your purpose. What faith that is! May his faith sopmehow be used by You to touch hearts around the world one way or another on this day, in this night.

AS this half-hour draws to a close, Lord, may Your presence continue to hover, Your Spirit apply the blood of our blessed Savior to Jesse's body. May the stripes suffered by Jesus be the agent of healing as Your Word says. May Your sustaining grace, Your unfailing love, Your boundless mercy be evident in this young life and Your eternal being.

In the blessed, sustaining love of our Lord Jesus Christ I ask these things,

Your son, Jim

It's been a whole week on this subject of mercy - aren't I done yet? As far as I know, I'm not.

The first week just gets my mind aware of the concept. The next weeks begin to engrave it on the pathways of my truly convoluted brain. It takes three weeks of consistent acting to form a habit, so if I want a transformed, renewed mind, four weeks is just barely enough.
So, more on mercy - in fact there is so much more on mercy that I'll just touch the edges this month.

Mercy is not "giving the benefit of the doubt". God never gives the benefit of the doubt. The concept means that you're not sure what someone intended, so, in order not to live a paranoid existence, you assume that the other one meant well.

God never gives the benefit of the doubt because He never doubts what was intended. He knows the reality of our internal workings. He knows when we added that little cut to our comment because we were feeling inadequate, or hurt, or afraid, or intimidated, or out of control.
His mercy is in full knowledge of the reality of our intentions. He loves us so much that His mercy is readily available in spite of us. He does not rationalize our behavior - just recognizes it for what it is and has mercy anyway.

In thinking about this, I'm excited to learn to behave that way towards others.

I get the fact that God's mercy allowed Gentiles to become part of His family after they walked away from their knowledge of Him.
I get the idea that He someday will bring the nation of Israel back to Himself in another display of His mercy.
It's just harder for me to really understand that His mercy for me means that He has clearly seen everything that still shames me about my past. Not only did He see it clearly, but He made a deliberate choice to forgive me and not exercise His very real right to allow justice to do to me what I deserve.

That is the essence of mercy. Having every right to demand satisfaction for a wrong done, but choosing to let go of that response and put it irrevocably in the past.
He has done that with my sins. He asks me to do that with those who sin against me.

Having every right to demand payment and punishment for that which was done to me, I show mercy and forgive. It is the only opportunity for me to really act like Jesus on this earth.

I cannot walk on water, I cannot heal at will, I cannot love like He loved, I cannot read minds, I cannot calm the winds and the waves. I can show mercy as I have been shown mercy. God help me.

Micah 6:8:
"With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression - the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

O how I need to learn to love mercy! As these days go by I realize how little mercy I have. When someone cuts me off in traffic, I honk my horn in anger. "They need to know their bad driving nearly caused a crash", I justify my behavior.
As I become more sensitive to God's great mercy to me, I also am made more aware of my lack. With the extrordinary level of mercy I have experienced, what right have I to withhold mine?
Today I will think about loving mercy and seek to show mine.

The mercies spoken of in Romans 12:1 are given in chapters 9-11. That is the section in Romans where he explains how God took the "chosen" designation away from the Jews and gave it to the Gentiles - grafted as a wild branch into the tree of Life. His mercy to the Gentiles.
Then it shares how in some great fashion He would someday also graft the branch of the Jews back onto the tree - in His mercy, all would find hope and connection.

It is this mercy we are called to recognize. And, in so doing, realize we put ourselves in a vulnerable place.

Since beginning this quest, and sharing it with you, I have been subject to really strange temptations and random desires. Not over-whelming, but fleetingly there. Temptations even to be angry and irritated at others -- while trying to focus on God's great mercy to me. Some great irony to remind me how much I still need Him. Since we wrestle against spiritual forces, it shouldn't surprise, but remind us that there are forces not happy to see positive change.
Again we are comforted by God's mercy. We wrestle not alone. There are hosts of angels involved in this battle with us. Read Daniel to see how it works.

God's Holy Spirit Himself is available to take the Blood of Jesus and apply it in mercy and power to aid in our healing from the inside out. Merciful action on many levels.
Today I will accept His merciful protection over my spirit. I will dwell on his mercy all day.