Begining to Understand God’s Mercy (Mark 5:20)

Some children seem to come into the world wanting to test the boundaries and challenge authority. I was just the opposite. That’s why for a long time the first set of Bible verses my grandmother had me memorize seemed strange. I worked hard to memorize them, though, because she gave me a flower sticker for every verse I learned. I didn’t realize then that she was planting a garden in my heart that would take decades before it truly blossomed.

The first verse I memorize was, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). I’d never seen a sheep and I didn’t know what iniquity was, so Grandmother had to explain it to me. I got my sticker but didn’t think it applied to a good girl like me. Next came, “Come now, and let us reason together, said the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). It took me a while to conquer this verse, but when I did I was rewarded with a crimson red begonia sticker. I’d never thought of sin having color before, and again Grandmother worked to try to help me understand what it meant.

Grandmother tried again. This time it was a short simple verse with only one word she had to explain to me: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). She explained that righteous means someone who did what was right. I listened politely, but I didn’t think this one applied to me either, because I saw myself as a very righteous little girl.

Finally, she taught me John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Then she asked, “Sarah, what do you need to do to have everlasting life?” I told her you needed to try really hard to be good. She patiently took me back to John 3:16 again and again. I wanted to be good and I wanted to obey, so I tried to line myself up with what God’s Word said. But in my heart I still believed that if I had enough time I could be good enough for God without anyone’s help.

Over 50 years passed before I could even begin to understand the mercy and grace of God. I was standing in front of my church and my pastor was praying for me before I spoke at a camp. He prayed, “Lord, just as You sent the Gadarene Demoniac to tell others of Your mercy, so we send Sarah.” To be honest, I was shocked to be compared to the Gadarene Demoniac. But the decades had stripped away the false understanding I had as a child about my own righteous. I also found that the seeds my grandmother planted had over time taken root and germinated. Now, whenever I read the story of this hopeless man I am filled with both wonder and gratitude that the Heavenly Father would send His beloved Son so that I, like he, could have eternal life. Today I fully identify with the Gadarene Demoniac, and count telling others about His mercy to me one of my greatest privileges.