A Severe Mercy

       I read a book when I was a new believer, entitled A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken. He was a man in love with his wife who (the cliff notes version) became a Christian after years of spiritual seeking, leaving Sheldon – not a believer - feeling left out and jealous of God for interjecting Himself between himself and his wife. To make matters worse, his wife suddenly died, leaving Sheldon angry as well as jealous, feeling as though God had “taken her twice,” not unlike a stalker who proclaims, “If I can't have her, neither can you!”

       It took a long time – and I recommend you read the book for yourself to fill in the many details – but Vanauken himself eventually entered a relationship with Jesus Christ. After much reflection, he concluded that the death of his wife all those years before was part of what it took for God to bring him to the culmination of his search for life and meaning: to Christ Himself. An ultimate mercy, he described it as, though as noted by the title of the book, a severe mercy nonetheless. He admitted that with his wife in his life, he probably would not have been brought to the realization of any greater need for God. With her taken out of the picture, however devastating as it was for him at the time, it forced him to go from good to best.

       Isn't that how it usually goes with us humans? I mean, when things are going well, it's easy to be so comfortable with our lives that we don't let our minds go further as to our need for more? I've found no clearer evidence of this in my own life – and in others I've observed as well - than when we have remained in a job that started out wonderfully but had gotten stale and gone south for any number of reasons. That ominous overshadowing of the not-so-great unknown clouds our rational sense. Instead of moving on then – or even starting the search for something better, we stay put in our misery because of the “known” misery (or evil) supersedes the dreaded and mysterious “unknown.”

       Yet what I am learning in this life – albeit admittedly slowly – is that, for the believer in Christ, life is a long journey (it feels at times, though ultimately quite brief as any 80+ year old will tell you!) toward trust leading to freedom in a way that unbelievers cannot claim. Not because of any innate superiority on our part, but because it is only as we walk humbly with our God and follow His directions (which is by no means a linear experience), giving up self-will and trusting when everything we think and expect turns upside down, that we begin to accept His “severe mercies” in our lives as mercies indeed, and in doing so, awaken slowly to fragments of freedom that represent our true selves, seen now only through a glass dimly but one day will be complete as we see Him face to face.