Thoughts: Hannah's Blog

This is not about Portia or “The Merchant of Venice” but what I learned about mercy. I had always thought grace and mercy meant the same, but there is a difference. Grace means “unmerited favor” some good thing that you get, which you don’t deserve. I have always experienced God’s favor in my life.

I learned that mercy means not getting something that you deserve – mostly not getting the punishment that you deserve. I learned the meaning of it from the parable of the unmerciful servant but had a first hand experience of it in one of my older projects.

I was the only developer working on it. I had some deadlines that had to be met. The technology was new, so I took time to do it, dragging it along till the last minute. Also, my code was not in the standard format and I had to do a lot of changes in the last minute and guess what – whatever was working earlier, stopped working and I had no clue how to fix those! A senior member in the team who was handling the project got really upset with what I had done. It was my fault that I didn’t take a backup of the working copy before I made further changes. The Senior had to spend a considerable amount of time in the night at the last minute to get things fixed.

I thought I will get bad rating from my manager that time, because the senior would definitely give this as a feedback (I would definitely have done it if I were in their place) but the Senior did not give any such feedback! I did not get a bad rating because the senior decided to be merciful. I felt so grateful and understood the meaning of mercy and also the importance of being merciful to others.

We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It is because of His great mercy that we are not consumed. How much more grateful should we be, to our God of mercy!