Give Thanks to the Lord, For His Mercy Endures Forever

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Have you read Psalm 136 recently? (Don’t worry – I wouldn’t have known it off the top of my head either.) In my Catholic Journaling Bible, Psalm 136 is called a “Hymn of Thanksgiving for God’s Everlasting Mercy.” This is a great description because the psalmist lists all the wondrous things God has done, followed by the phrase, “for his mercy endures forever,” over and over. FOR 26 VERSES!

In an early post, I mentioned that during retreat I was meditating on the phrase “[love] endures all things” from 1 Corinthians 13. So, today I wanted to talk about these two phrases and the word “endure,” and how I’ve been misinterpreting this word for a long time.

Maybe it’s my melancholic personality, or the fact that life just is so hard sometimes, but when I hear the word endure, the definition that first comes to mind is: to suffer something difficult over a long period. We endure daily annoyances and inconveniences. We endure difficult people in our lives. We endure work we don’t enjoy.

So when I first read the phrases “[love] endures all things” or “His mercy endures forever,” it sounds to me like God puts up with our difficult tendencies and just bears with our faults. He is merely enduring all my things.

But is that what St. Paul or the Psalmist are really trying to tell us here – that God simply puts up with us?

Given all we know about the nature of God, I don’t think so. In meditating on this scripture, it suddenly dawned on me that there is another definition of endure: to last for a long time.

Hmmm…that sounds more like the true nature of God.

Love, aka God, endures all things – meaning He outlasts all things. He is in a long term commitment with us. He will not quit loving any of us and will pursue us TO THE END no matter what.

He is dedicated and committed forever. His love will outlast EVERYTHING. His love doesn’t just bear with our faults, but he loves us in spite of those faults. His love doesn’t count our deficiencies. His love exists above and beyond “all things.”

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.”
Pope Saint John Paul II

So if we are “not the sum of our weakness,” why do we often feel as if God must be looking at us with condemnation? Well, we believe the lie of the evil one that makes us think that God sees us as sinful, guilty, despicable creatures that he must “endure.”

At some point we all believe this false image of the Father, don’t we? But it is simply not true.

God actually looks at us as with a tender heart, seeing us in pain and in need, and he is offering us forgiveness and compassion. In a word, his love is mercy. Mercy is God’s love for us when he sees our hearts in pain.

In fact, I wonder if His love for us is often more apparent at the times when our faults appear. The times that God has made His love most known to me was when I have admitted my faults (in confession) and when I have admitted my need for Him.

When we finally realize that we need his forgiveness and that we can’t do anything without Him, that is when our hearts are finally in the right place to receive His love.

That is when His love comes to us as MERCY.

And His mercy endures forever, because it is beyond our understanding, beyond measure, it outlasts everything else.

While I was on retreat, one of the suggested prayer activities was to use Psalm 136 and rewrite it from your own perspective – to write a prayer of thanksgiving to God for all your gifts.

So I did – I listed as many things as I could, ranging from the obvious gifts of my husband and children, to the gifts he’s given to all humanity, to the seemingly impossible.

Here’s a little sample…

“He has poured out His love into my heart, for His mercy endures forever…
Who has given me graces overflowing, for His mercy endures forever…
Who has taught me that I am good and worthy, for His mercy endures forever…
Who delights in me, for His mercy endures forever…
He knows what I need for my best good, for His mercy endures forever…
He forgave me before I even asked, for His mercy endures forever…
He surrounds me with beauty, for His mercy endures forever…
His love has always been stronger than my weaknesses, for His mercy endures forever…
-from my journal

I wrote 7 pages in my journal! And I’m sure that I could have kept going, but the breakfast bell was ringing. LOL!

Through this exercise I was immersed in God’s love for me. I got a small glimpse of the enduring mercy of our Father who is so good.

We are heading into the Divine Mercy weekend. Might I suggest you grab your Bible, flip open to Psalm 136 and create your own prayer of thanksgiving?