If you turn on the news, or let’s be real, if you scroll through a news website, you’ll see lots of examples of extremes– both the good and the bad.
News outlets, storytellers, and even advertisers know that our minds gravitate toward and remember the extremes.
We want to be shocked that someone is so wrong or different than we are, or we want to be amazed that someone did something so awesome or selfless.
The same is true in our own lives, right?
If I asked you what your top 3 spiritual moments are, I bet you’d have a list.
If I asked you the 3 moments when you’ve felt the lowest or most depressed, I bet you’d have a list, too.
I’ve been trying to focus more recently on finding the beauty and godly power in the seemingly mundane middle parts of life.
I’m not experiencing my lowest lows right now, and I’m not experiencing my highest highs.
But there is spiritual power in the middle.
Like when I watch one of my kids choosing to do something kind.
Or when I have a really good conversation with a friend.
Or when I read a scripture that just gives my heart a little bit of peace after a long day.
In our church, we love to use a phrase for these little daily miracles: “tender mercies”, which was first coined in these psalms.
In Psalm 40:11, David writes: “Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord”.
They aren’t the extremes.
But that doesn’t mean I want to notice them any less.
They are the little signs and support that God gives more often than my brain usually realizes.
Even though they might not be as memorable ten years from now, or honestly even next week, the tender mercies that I am given are what can really sustain me and show me that He is involved in the very details of my life.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
