I was praying my “daily” prayer out of my precious little book, “The Valley of Vision,” [A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett]
I usually pray through this book once a year, always finding something that resounds within my soul. That was the case today. The prayer ended: “Help me to guide my affections with discretion, to owe no man anything, to be able to give to him that needeth, to feel it is my duty and pleasure to be merciful and forgiving, to show to the world the likeness of Jesus.”
I was struck by the request, “Help me … to feel it is my duty and pleasure to be merciful and forgiving ….”
Duty and pleasure are words we usually do not find in the same thought. Duty, according to Merriam-Webster means “obligatory tasks, conduct, service, or functions that arise from one’s position (as in life or in a group), a moral or legal obligation.”
That doesn’t sound very pleasant. As Christians we do have a duty to be merciful and forgiving, as God was merciful and forgiving with us. (Freely we received, now freely we give.) But, often the people that need mercy and forgiveness are not “pleasant” people.
There have been times when I have given mercy grudgingly and granted forgiveness simply because I am supposed to do so. But I believe the one who wrote that prayer understood that it is God’s desire that we look at that “duty” with pleasure. Because freely we received mercy and forgiveness from God’s good pleasure (when we were not very “pleasant” people) and now we are to take pleasure in granting the same to others.
