If you could give God’s mercy a color, it would be blue. Well, first it would be red, because Jesus shed his blood so that we might receive forgiveness of sins leading to a right relationship with God and an eventual home in heaven. But now He is in heaven, distributing mercy as a high priest who can identify with our mortality, and mercy is blue.
I mean blue as in calm blue skies and a quiet blue ocean. I take those for granted here in Hawaii. But it’s March, and we’ve had more than a week of angry skies—flooding and landslides, really. When God’s mercy smiles down on us, it shows up as a calm blue sky unmixed with atmospheric drama.
Just think about some Biblical times when God’s mercy was absent, like in Noah’s day when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. There were no blue skies or blue ocean then. Only eight people lived through that.
Think of Sodom and Gomorrah—cities that were oblivious to God’s character expectations until the day the Lord opened the skies and rained fire and brimstone down on them (Gen. 19:24). They would have wished for blue skies.
Both of those examples demonstrate God’s wrath and judgment turned evident in the skies. Can we say that when it’s calm and “normal” out there, God is merciful, encouraging us to live in His gentle ways and to enjoy Him and all He created for us?
Now let’s go a little more metaphoric. What about the dark night when we don’t personally see blue skies/God’s mercy? Sometimes His mercy is hidden by darkness. But just know—it’s all blue to Him. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee (Ps. 139:10-12).
And then, what about the times we live in right now, when the world seems dark, and God’s blue skies of innocence and mercy are fading. This evil that is overspreading the skies is a sign of the end times. But it’s not time to shrink in dread and terror. It’s time to be alert, watchful and keep living right. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light (Rom 13:11-12).
We’ve seen nothing like the darkness that will be the tribulation. But that’s not the end of it all. Watch: For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (Mal 4:1-2). In context, this is a promise to Israel, but it shows God’s character. He comes to the rescue of all believers who trust in Him and who call upon Him. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds (Ps. 57:10).
With God, mercy lives on.
Jody