I was listening to someone quote the well-known Bible verse from Micah 6:8 recently. From the New Living Translation, it is, “No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what He requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” There are times when we wonder what God wants us to do. This verse makes it very clear. Do the right thing. Love mercy. Stay humble as we walk with God. And in that moment, I wondered, what exactly does it mean to ‘love mercy’?

We know that showing mercy to someone is having compassion on them and forgiving them if they’ve wronged you or someone that you love. Sometimes that is really hard to do. We find a way to do it because we know that God tells us that we must. But what does it mean to not just show mercy? Micah 6:8 says, “to LOVE mercy”. So what does that look like?

When someone else gets the role you wanted or the job you interviewed for or the promotion you felt like you deserved, and you actively show kindness and genuinely wish them the best,… that is loving mercy. When someone hurts your feelings and you’d rather ignore them, but you show up anyway and have a decent conversation,… that is loving mercy.

I believe that loving mercy is also recognizing that we fall short every day and God’s Word tells us that His mercies toward us are new and fresh every morning. So we humbly and gratefully receive God’s fresh mercy in our lives every single day. Because we can fill up on it every single day, we have mercy to give to others. Because God loves a cheerful giver, I pray that God will help us to love giving mercy even more.