When It's Too Hard

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.  Matthew 5:7

Corrie Ten Boom wrote of a meeting she had with one of the guards from the concentration camp where she had suffered and her sister had died in her book “The Hiding Place”.

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!"
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.”

There are times when mercy just doesn’t come naturally. Our flesh rises up against what we know to be right and truth takes a back door to the pain and suffering that we have endured. In this moment the enemy lays a trap for our soul.

It is easy to say that we cannot forgive. We can blame our fleshly nature. We can say that we are not yet “mature” enough in the Lord. We can reason that the offense was just too great. But whatever the reason the result is always the same. Our heart begins to harden. The Holy Spirit is grieved and we begin to lose our ability to love those that God has sent us to rescue.

It is comforting to know that when the road is too steep. God is always there if we will call on His Name. “Give me Your forgiveness.” I don’t have enough. I have reached the bottom of my barrel. I need you, Lord.

In the meeting with the SS guard it was not the guard who was set free but Corrie Ten Boom. She was rescued from certain disaster in her soul. A festering that only God had seen. I don’t think the meeting was an accident of fate. I know that God placed that man right in the path of His beloved daughter. Her love was multiplied and her effectiveness for God increased above anything that she could have planned. God has a way of doing that if we call on His Name when the enemy comes in like a flood. Don’t be afraid to face those overwhelming moments when you look into the impossible and quietly pray, “Give me your strength.” “Give me your forgiveness.” “Give me more grace.”