Five Truths about the Gift of Mercy
The gift of mercy is a rough gig. I used to say that all women go around with a broken heart. I projected this particular spiritual gift onto everyone because my heart regularly aches for those around me. It didn’t occur to me that not everyone’s heart does. Now I realize that almost anyone with the gift of mercy carries a heart wounded on behalf of others. And I also know now that not everyone has this gift. The world would be a quite different place if they did, and not necessarily better.
But as is the case with any spiritual gift, immaturity can hamper its effectiveness. I believe spiritual gifting occurs at conception. We earn maturity in our gifting the hard way. I never cease to marvel at some of the unique and immense giftings of those around me. But I also grieve when that gifting goes to waste because of a lack of character or simply a lack of knowledge.
Sometimes I think the gift of mercy requires a tremendous amount of courage. I suppose living out any gift does, but a person whose primary character centers around compassion faces a lifetime of pain. The question is not whether an empathetic person will suffer, but whether they will be
wise enough to manage and contain that suffering.
For myself, the enemy chose to wound this area quite early on in my life. My response to the mean bullies in my early years and to the even meaner bully I married was to dissociate. I couldn’t bear my own pain. But in rejecting my own pain, I often gave myself wholly to the pain of others. I allowed myself to be too easily drawn into their tragedies as a way of avoiding my own.
Life and the Lord taught me a few things along the way about how to use my mercy gift wisely. After all, the purpose of such a gift is to provide comfort to the hurting as well as to extend grace to the hard-hearted. It is Christ’s mercy that draws us and those of us with a gift of compassion act as Jesus with skin on to the hurting and scarred hearts out there. So here goes:
Mercy-Givers crave loyalty.
If you have this gift, you do not give up on friends easily. In fact, you intend to keep all of your friends your whole life. That is what a friend is to you; a life-long commitment. But the weakness hidden inside this loyal heart is that we often take up causes that are not ours. If someone we love is harmed, we bear a grudge. In fact, while we often forgive those who harm us too quickly, we can easily fall into a deep hatred of those who hurt the ones we love. We also keep people in our lives who shouldn’t stay there. We give our loyalty to those who do not always deserve it.
We are sensitive to the emotions of others.
Most empaths I know can sense the mood in a room within minutes. Even more than that, we sense who is suffering as we interact with people we know and even those we don’t. A mercy gifting turns us into lightning rods who can accurately gauge the emotional weather in a gathering.
But the flaw of an immature empath is that we can lean too much on our emotions and intuition. We are too quick to believe that our emotions accurately gauge a situation. My husband has the spiritual gift of teaching. This means he loves accuracy and analysis. We act as a much-needed counterbalance to each other. I am so grateful for his logical way of going about life, and he is often grateful for my understanding of relationships.
Mercy-givers are gentle.
Gentleness is an important trait, especially in this violent world. I regularly see people healed emotionally simply by being treated with tenderness. Mercy-givers lend a much-needed calm to a tempestuous world.
And sometimes we lack a spine. We tolerate evil or abuse because we don’t know how to say no. Boundaries are actually emotionally painful for us to establish. The way to grow out of this is to face the truth that a lack of boundaries can cause significantly more suffering for everyone involved. Tolerating wickedness does not save anyone from pain, but actually can bring much more. Sometimes being merciful means saying no. Hardest lesson I ever learned. And I still have to review this truth regularly.
Mercy-givers often seek out prophets.
My other gifting is prophet which means I am often torn between a need to say the truth and the need to make people feel better. But those with a mercy gift love truth-tellers. Opposites often attract, even in the spiritual realm, and those who are empathetic often seek out people who are unafraid of telling the ugly truth when they need to.
And the flip side is that empaths will avoid those they deem insensitive. Avoiding conflict is natural for someone motivated by compassion. Ironically, however, those empaths who weep over the hard-hearted will go out of their way to avoid someone who hurt their feelings. Insensitivity is the unpardonable sin in the eyes of an immature mercy-giver.
We need intimate relationships.
More than most of the other giftings, a mercy gift needs close friendships. Often they have close relationships with their pets and have a few rescues as well. Physical affection and quality time are two common love languages although that is not set in stone. Empaths need a few close relationships to feel grounded. A miserable marriage, while difficult for everyone, is particularly devastating for a mercy-giver.
Because of this need, those with this trait often fall into a number of relationship traps. If an empath lacks a well-defined sense of self, they easily merge with others, losing their identity in the process. Sometimes a person motivated by compassion gets possessive and struggles with jealousy as they watch those they are close to getting their needs filled elsewhere. A mercy-giver desperate for love can also fall easily for an abuser. Many of the people I know with this gift, male and female, get taken in by abusive people who know how to play on the sensitive heartstrings of the empath.
Of Jesus’ disciples, John most clearly demonstrated a mercy gifting. He wanted to call fire down on the heads of the people who rejected his beloved Jesus. He wrote about God’s love almost exclusively, focusing on forgiveness and grace. He was the one leaning on Jesus in the upper room and his closest friend among the disciples was Peter, a prophetic personality if there ever was one. He called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved because his heart stayed tender towards his Master.
I think God gave the book of Revelation to John precisely because of his mercy gift. The book of Revelation brims over with tribulation. A prophet without the gift of mercy could easily miss God’s heart aching over His rebellious creation. Prophets, at least immature ones, desire justice at the cost of love. John, as a mercy-giver, did not separate justice from love because the first cannot exist without the other.
So fellow mercy-givers take heart. I mean that literally. Take your large hearts and dedicate them to the much larger heart that created them. God wants to love others into the kingdom through your generous, kind, and peaceful presence on this earth. But the only way this works is if your hearts are submitted to the Holy Spirit who can help you navigate a cold hard world.
17 Comments
perfectingtruth101
I enjoyed this article, and I can definitely relate to what you’ve shared. Thank you 🙂
Heather Hart
I can so relate to this! I don’t think I have ever gotten “mercy” on a spiritual gifts test, but I know this is something God has placed in my heart.
MJ
I relate to this on so many levels! I definitely think I’m still “growing into” my gift of mercy and trying to distinguish the Holy Spirit vs alternative feelings/powers. Boundaries are so incredibly important to have or you will be setting up for self distruction. (Something I know very well.) Thank you for this post!
mimionlife
A great message! 🙂
Susan Evans (@SusanCEvans)
Oh my goodness, this is exactly what God had been teaching me. “Prophets, at least immature ones, desire justice at the cost of love.” I have learned to have compassion for people who are blind to their own atrocities and truly think that evil is good. I used to just call down justice on them, but now I feel so sad that they are going to hell (because those who don’t love don’t know God) if they don’t stop and repent.
amyjoy82
I’ve never thought of myself as having a mercy gifting, but after reading your post, I wonder. I appreciate your thoughtful articulating of what it means to carry the gift of mercy–and how to do so with maturity. For a long time, I struggled with many of the things you mentioned (avoiding conflict, failing to set boundaries, etc.). As you say so beautifully, we have to turn our large hearts over to God’s Spirit–that’s the only way to move forward with wisdom in any gifting. Thanks for sharing this.
Melissa
“The question is not whether an empathetic person will suffer, but whether they will be wise enough to manage and contain that suffering.” – I feel like this is a continual lesson and skill that I am working on honing. It is an ever balance.
KathrynCLang
I had never thought of “mercy giving” in the same way as an empath. Thanks for sharing this!
headcasechristian
“Now I realize that almost anyone with the gift of mercy carries a heart that is wounded on behalf of others.” I like the way you put that. It is a level of empathy that is incomparable to sympathy. While one is not necessarily any greater than the other, they are still very different.
Alynda Long
Mercy is my highest spiritual gift (according to the “tests). I have always had a “new age” connotation connected to the term “empaths”, but I definitely agree that people who have great empathy for/with others highly value relationships/bonds with others! Blessings to you !
hisdearlyloveddaughter
I’ve known for some time that I have been gifted as a prophet – so for that reason I didn’t believe it was possible for me to have the gift of mercy… though I knew I was an empath. After reading this I think I may have been wrong. It certainly is a rare combination, and one that causes me to regularly find myself in conflict internally. While compassion comes easily, I also get so frustrated to see others refuse to just do what’s right. I long for justice, while hurting for the deep wounds of those who often in turn, hurt others. As always, you’ve given me lots to think about. Thanks Alice!
Alice
Being both prophet and mercy is a challenge for me. But I feel like the Lord gifted me with these in part because I am a writer. I need to tell the truth in my writing, but I need to create an emotional experience as well, particularly in my fiction. But being both means I am able to tell the truth in love. I just wish it didn’t come with so much agonizing.
hisdearlyloveddaughter
Yeah. For sure. Totally relate to that! In my ministry I deal with a lot of hurting people who need to make difficult choices, and it is devastating to me each time someone chooses to remain a victim.
inkblotsofhope
Interesting read! I hadn’t given as much thought to the pain that results from specific spiritual gifts, so this was certainly eye-opening to me. I too, have often felt the pain of others on myself, with certain seasons of my life more heightened in this area than others. Keeping in line with some of the challenges those with the gift of mercy have, I wonder if they are also predisposed to taking on the role of rescuer. I could see that as the case for myself in past years and for some others I know with this gift.
Again, good read– I tweeted!
keepingmypromisejustin
Oh my, you are spot on! I can relate on so many levels and I greatly appreciate your perspective.
His Whisper
So beautiful! “Now I realize that almost anyone with the gift of mercy carries a heart that is wounded on behalf of others”
Donna Miller
This is beautiful Alice! I have the gift of mercy but need to grow and mature more into it. I needed and still need to build right boundaries in my life. The Lord is helping me with not confusing mercy and love with letting others ripshod over my life…