Mercy
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Luke 6:36
When was the last time you had mercy on someone?
For me it happens everyday. I should also note that everyday many people are merciful to me.
Now here’s the real hard question, when was the last time you had mercy on someone who did you wrong?
That’s definitely a harder question to answer for most of us.
For some reason when somebody treats us unfairly or bad we feel that they don’t deserve our mercy.
What if God treated you that way? What if after you sinned God never showed you mercy. Ok he might show you mercy the first time you sinned, but after that he said, “you should have learned your lesson before!”
Oh my GOSH. Life would be so different.
Today I want to encourage everyone to think of one person that needs your mercy, who you don’t really want to give it.
Maybe it’s a person who lied to you, or “borrowed” something and hasn’t returned it yet, or maybe it’s someone who abused you, spoke ill of you to others, made you feel bad, anything.
After you have that person, take a second to pray for them. Pray that God will soften your heart to allow you to show them mercy. Pray that God will bless their lives. Pray for their health.
By now some of you may be saying “NO WAY AM I PRAYING FOR THAT PERSON”.
Who are you hurting by not showing them mercy? Do they even know that you are holding on to those hard feelings?
Probably not.
You are only hurting yourself by not showing them mercy. YOUR blood pressure is higher, YOUR stress is rising, YOUR health is suffering, YOUR time is being lost, YOUR life is changing, YOUR mindset is degrading.
YOU get the point. By not showing them mercy you are the real person who is suffering.
So stop right now and pray for them.
Prayer
God we come to you today with heavy hearts. We come to say that we are sorry that we have a calloused heart against anyone. We come to ask for your guidance and HELP. Yes, mostly your help. We would like you to help soften our hearts to anyone and everyone who has ever sinned agonist us. Help us to show them the same mercy that you show us everyday. We pray that you would help us to grow closer to you. Help us to be more like you. Help us to be as generous with our mercy as you are with yours. God thank you for giving us the POWER to show mercy. Thank you for giving us the knowledge to know that mercy is the answer. Thank you for being the best example of how to be merciful. Amen
Will you pray with us?
Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation
All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel
For all military personal serving our country and their families
Those in Leadership positions throughout the world
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer
