god’s mercy

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Loving Enough

October 30, 2026October 29, 2026 krisshetter

First published December 2025 as a Christmas message

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5

Hello Friends! I haven’t written for the blog in over a year and have missed hearing from you with your comments and insights! Many of you know that this year has been filled with both highs and lows. In April, I became a full-time caregiver for my father, who had been diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer the previous July. It was a blessing filled with trials, sadness, and laughter. In September, my eldest daughter and I sat by his bedside watching him take his last breath.

As many of you have experienced yourself, being a caregiver not only takes up your physical time but also your mental and emotional time. The thought of researching and writing was a dim, distant light this year. Recently, that light has burned brighter with each passing day. My prayers have included this burning desire. I just today began gathering materials for a possible study in Romans. I don’t know where it will lead but I know being in His Word is always fruitful.

As always happens when I start pondering writing with more fervor, the Holy Spirit nudges me and reveals truths to me. Today, in fact, just a few moments ago, was no different.

In my Truth for Life devotional (Alistair Begg), I was challenged like King David, to repent and humble myself. To stop covering lies and let God cover them for me. I wrote that I don’t love God as I should, nearly enough. It was a hard truth to write but one that has weighed on my mind for some time.

And because God often uses vivid illustrations to bring His point home, both my dogs approached me while I was sitting indisposed in the bathroom. I say “both” because my dad’s dog now lives with us. A dog whose fur is the exact color of my late mother’s hair. A dog who has lived most of his life in an unhappy home, full of strife and anger.

As both came to nuzzle against my knees, I begrudgingly petted Ben – my dad’s dog. Yet when my dog Tucker put his cold, wet nose on my skin I leaned in to snuggle with the big lump. Tucker wandered off and little Ben laid close to my feet. And I felt that Holy Spirit nudge on my heart.

You see, my allergies have gotten terrible with a second dog. And after just one day of my new carpet Ben peed on it in two places. He’s kind of neurotic and yelps at the slightest movement. He follows me around breathing heavily and anxiously wherever I go. He wanders off when we are at the beach as though he’s forgotten what I look and sound like. His bark is sharp and annoying. He’s underfoot and overly needy.

And I don’t love him like I should. Like he needs.

Ben is cute as a button. But I don’t want to love him. I don’t want to give myself fully over to him. He represents a terrible past that I just want left behind.

In that moment, I realized Ben wasn’t really the subject of God’s lesson. I was. My reluctance to love him revealed something deeper: I don’t love God the way I should. I stand at arms-length from Him. Because if I were to truly love Him, I would have to give all of myself to Him. I would have to accept both the blessings and the trials that come through His hands. I would have to give up my fears, my prejudices, my preferences. I would have to go “all in.”

While God may not sneak over to a corner and pee on my new carpet, He might bring people (or dogs) into my life that will. People who need mercy, forgiveness and love. I know this because He put me, a broken, sinful person, into other believers’ lives. And I pray for their mercy, love and forgiveness towards me.

Ben, sweet goofy Ben, needs a lot of love and patience. I need a lot more Zyrtec. More than that, I need a lot more Jesus. I need to love Jesus a lot more than I do. So, I prayed for forgiveness today that I don’t love enough the God who sacrificed His Son for me. Who has forgiven my yelping and my anxiety. For making a mess on beautiful things.

While I know the coming year will be full of unbelievers doing terrible things, I also know that God will be at work. He will be in the tears and the laughter. His glory will be available for anyone to see. And I want to see Him, trust Him, and love Him in every season, every place, and every circumstance.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ben and Tucker

Lord, I Cry Out for Mercy

October 18, 2026October 2, 2026 krisshetter

First published September 17, 2020 as part of the His Works Project series.

She was rarely “late.” With each passing day she began to worry more. She and her boyfriend knew better but they were young, just 15 and 16. They frequently met up for sex while his mother was at work. And they didn’t use protection. So, five days after she should’ve started her period, she found herself sitting on the toilet, with a small Tupperware bowl waiting to catch her urine. She had never been to a clinic before and had called to see if they could do a pregnancy test. As she sat there, she prayed.

She wasn’t a church-goer. In fact, her parents never spoke of God. Yet she regularly was moved to pray. She didn’t know what it meant to trust God or receive justification through faith in Jesus. She just knew she needed to pray. She had prayed for a lot of things over the years. For her mom to stop hitting her. For her dad to speak to her. For her brother to stop tormenting her. She didn’t know if God was listening but she kept praying.

As she sat there praying for mercy – because that’s what would have to happen – she swore she would change her ways. She made empty promises, begging to not be pregnant. And just as she began to capture a sample, her period started. God had not only granted her mercy but also mercy on her potential child. For had she been pregnant she most assuredly would have aborted it.

That girl was me. I didn’t deserve His mercy. I was regularly living in sin and creating my own rules, my own false sense of ‘righteousness.’ I deserved the punishment. I deserved to have to face a difficult choice and live with it for the rest of my life. But He showed mercy. For 39 years, I’ve remembered that day as if it were yesterday. But how many times have I failed to show others that same mercy?

“Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgement without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgement.” James 2:12-13

I recently listened to a podcast about refusing to settle for mediocrity. It prompted me to examine how well I understood the words we Christians use so often. We sit in church, listen to podcasts, and read devotionals, but how often do we hear theological terms without fully understanding them? So I started a list.

Righteousness: living in a way that reflects God’s truth through our words and actions.
Sanctification: the process by which the Holy Spirit molds us into the image of Jesus.
Justification: being declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Grace: simply put, God’s favor and kindness toward us.
Mercy: not receiving the punishment we deserve.

Writing these definitions gave me a clearer understanding of the amazing work God does in us through His Holy Spirit. But most of all, I kept coming back to mercy. I understood that God forgives us each time we fall into the traps of sin. We all have been in the situation Paul lamented when he wrote the following:

“Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!” Romans 7:21-24

Each and every day we find ourselves sinning – worried about money, hoarding our gifts, being judgmental and unkind to others, unforgiving of our loved ones or even strangers. Gossiping, stealing, or even hating or causing injury to others. There is only one being to have ever walked this earth that didn’t need God’s grace, forgiveness and mercy – Jesus.

Charles Spurgeon wrote in his prayer “Deliver Us From Evil” about mercy:

“We come for mercy, great God. It must always be our first request, for we have sinned against a just and holy law of which our consciences approve. We are evil, but Your law is holy and just and good. We have offended knowingly.”

I knew having sex outside of marriage was wrong. I knew having unprotected sex outside of marriage was stupid. And yet I did it time after time. God gifted me with mercy over and over. He also gifted me with mercy when He delivered the right man to me to become my husband. I didn’t deserve him. I was a mess. After 31 years of marriage I still thank God my husband has stuck with me as I unlearn old patterns from when I was outside of God’s justification. And I know now, it’s time for me to pick up my part of the bargain.

“Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” Matthew 5:7

I’m grateful that God flipped this admonition. He has done it with so many of us. He has shown us the mercy we didn’t deserve. We need to pass that glorious gift along to others. There are those in our lives that we hope to fail, that we wish ill will, that we hope will “get their just due.” Aren’t we thankful that God doesn’t think the same about us?

For about two years I worked as a substitute in a high school office. There were two positions like mine. When the other position was filled with a young woman I was encouraged by her enthusiasm. She was full of ideas and brought a cheery face to the job. And then she started being late every day. At times she wouldn’t even show up. When she did show up, I would find her on Facebook or on personal phone calls. Her failings impacted my job. I became bitter because, hey, I was just a substitute. Why should I have to make up for her issues when she was an actual employee? I found myself driving to work dreading what was to come. I actually prayed she would get hit by a bus so I wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore. Yes, I did that.

The situation became so difficult that I considered quitting, but doing so would have left people I cared about in a bind. Three months in, I sat at an intersection on the way to work. It was a long red light. The Holy Spirit descended on me in the car. I had my Perspective Change Moment. What I should have been doing all along was praying for God to intervene positively in her life. I could have left her to do two people’s jobs and/or complain endlessly to the supervisor, but I needed to show mercy and love. So, I prayed every day for the next week that God would resolve the problem. For God to help her. For God to take control. The peace that came over me was amazing!

After that one week she resigned. And a good friend of mine who had been a finalist for the job previously was hired. God is good. God is forgiving. God, thankfully, is merciful.

To quote the explorer Christopher Columbus, “I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and He has covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous presence.”

To whom do you need to show mercy? How has God been merciful to you?

Hiker overlooking river valley with snow-capped mountains and sunrise

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He Knows All Things

June 3, 2026April 14, 2026 krisshetter

“Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” Psalm 44:21

“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:30

Of all the blog posts I’ve written so far in this series it’s this one that I’ve spent the most contemplating. It’s not for lack of material to work with; no, it’s the abundance that has caused me to ponder my focus.

God’s omniscience shows up in scripture in various ways, both in the obvious and not so obvious. It’s why I chose the two pieces of scripture to get us started. One exemplifies the idea of God knowing exactly what we think and feel. While the other represents God’s knowledge of everything in the natural world. He is not only everywhere and all-powerful; He sees and understands all.

“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him; for whenever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” 1 John 3:20

The Apostle John apparently was paying attention during Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. If you drill down into all that Jesus taught and can be found in Matthew 5-7, He’s talking about God knowing our thoughts and hearts. Even back in the book of Isaiah God told His people not to come with empty sacrifices; He wants our hearts. This was the downfall of Cain.

“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good.” Proverbs 15:3

There is no place to hide, as the post on God’s omnipresence reminds us. He is both physically everywhere and knowledgeable about all. To truly grasp God’s mercy we must understand this.

No one gets away with anything. God is a just God and cannot let sin go unpunished. We should be thankful for that. Conversely, we should be eternally grateful that the punishment for our sins has already been paid. As Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.” We may not understand it all but we don’t need to.

“God does not require us to understand His will, just obey it, even if it seems unreasonable.” Life Principle #5, Charles Stanley, 30 Life Principles

When we completely accept as truth the “3 O’s of God,” as I once titled a blog post on His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, we let go of our wills and submit gladly to the power of Christ. When we accept that the Holy Spirit is not just the angel on our shoulder balancing the red devil on the other, we move into a Christian life free of bondage to sin.

His Eternal Wisdom and Knowledge

“Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” Isaiah 40:13-14

When James tells us in His book to seek God’s wisdom if we are lacking, he’s simply building on the truth of God’s omniscience told throughout the Old Testament. From the creation of the world to leading His people out of Egypt and the wisdom books to prophets foretelling both the first and second coming of Christ, we can see God knowing what came, what is happening and what is to come. All knowledge and wisdom finds its source in Him.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Romans 11:33

Friends, when we realize this truth, we can laugh when scientists “discover” something “new.” In fact, I read there are at least 10 major scientific ideas found in the Old Testament. For example, long before explorers circled the earth pronouncing it round, Isaiah tells us, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22).

Rest In His Insight

Honestly, when we feel lost, unsure, unseen, unheard, unloved by those around us in this physical world it can be very discouraging. But God. He sees you, has wisdom and knowledge to impart to you, and loves you. He has a plan laid for you and for me. And it is good.

Countless Stars: At a time when people believed the stars could be easily numbered, Scripture declared the opposite: “As the host of heaven cannot be counted…” (Jeremiah 33:22). Modern astronomy reveals billions of galaxies each containing countless stars. The more we look, the more we discover that it’s truly an innumerable multitude sparkling in our night sky. Science and The Bible, Bible Hub

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Knitted with God

December 10, 2023 krisshetter

Praise the Lord, you his servants;
    praise the name of the Lord.
²Let the name of the Lord be praised,
    both now and forevermore.
³From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
    the name of the Lord is to be praised.

⁴The Lord is exalted over all the nations,
    his glory above the heavens.
⁵Who is like the Lord our God,
    the One who sits enthroned on high,
⁶who stoops down to look
    on the heavens and the earth?

⁷He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
⁸he seats them with princes,
    with the princes of his people.
⁹He settles the childless woman in her home
    as a happy mother of children.

Praise the Lord. Psalm 113

Last month my husband and I were blessed to become grandparents of a beautiful baby girl. Born on my birthday, the Lord blessed me even more with giving me the gift of being with my daughter as she went into labor and then holding this precious baby just hours after she entered the world! With two daughters of our own I still find myself amazed by the gift of life — how God creates us, weaves us so intricately in a mother’s womb.

A couple of friends and I are doing an advent study and we were tasked during the first week to go back to the book of Genesis. On day 4, we read Genesis 3:14-24 and were asked to list the consequences of Adam, Eve’s and the serpent’s sins. We were also to identify God’s mercy in this passage. Awhile back I heard a lesson about this section of Genesis. On how God gave Adam and Eve both curses and blessings. When you view this text in this way you discover something different that the usual reading. Here’s what He said to Eve:

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16.

We all answered that God cursed her with painful childbirth and that her husband would be “the boss.” If we take this verse as a stand alone that’s what we get, done. However, in the context of the whole creation story, let me point out two blessings.

The only way beings had been created until that time was by God’s miraculous actions. Breathing life into Adam and then taking a piece of Adam and creating Eve. Now Eve will be blessed with herself creating new life. She will be God’s vessel for all humanity. What an incredible gift!
When God created Eve, she was a companion, a helper, so that Adam wouldn’t be alone. With God’s speech to Eve He has introduced love and desire. A marriage, rather than just a friendship. A lifelong covenant with another human being!

Without this curse/blessing for Eve we wouldn’t have the long line of woman who, even in their old and seemingly barren years, gave birth to the line of the future King. And then, of course we come to Mary, Jesus’ mother. Her womb holds the special place of Jesus’ first earthly home. With God’s DNA and that of Joseph and Mary’s woven together to create the God/Man. What a beautiful and glorious gift to all women-kind!

“My soul glorifies the Lord
⁴⁷    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
⁴⁹    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name. Luke 1: 46-49

Although Mary was Jesus’ first earthly abode where God did His glorious weaving work, here’s the message I heard preached today: “The Holy Spirit, who lives in us, is leveraging the glory of God to weave our frayed hearts back together.”

Isn’t that a wonderful promise? A gift from Jesus as He left this earthly home to join His father in heaven, the Holy Spirit lives in all who say “I believe.” The glory of God is living in our wombs, in our hearts, in our very souls. Our pastor stated, “He takes the promise of peace and calms our hearts.” He is the God who never leaves us because He has brought His glory to dwell inside us! Oh mighty God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords thank you for this gift of life, this gift of your ever presence.

"To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:27

Thanks be to God for the blessings He bestowed on Eve that day. And may all Glory, Honor and Power be given to Him alone. Amen