Mere Missions

38 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

• who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, • who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. • who works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. • who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. • who will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. • who does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. This is the kind of Lord we need personally, for deep inside the secret chambers of our heart we feel and cry out like the saints and prophets of old: • “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Adam). • “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (King David). • “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah). • “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Peter). • “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (Paul the Apostle).