But I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:5-6 (NKJV) I have trusted in Your mercy. I have been bold, confident, secure, sure, …
But I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:5-6 (NKJV)
I have trusted in Your mercy. I have been bold, confident, secure, sure, put my hope in, run for refuge to Your mercy.1
What a wonderful, bow-down-to-the-ground-in-adoration, gasping, grasping, reaching-out-my-hand-for-yours truth. Yes Lord, in your mercy I trust. There is nothing else. It's all I can go on. Yet, it's all that I need. But this verse made me want to dig deeper.
What is God's mercy?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines mercy as:
Clemency and compassion shown to a person who is in a position of powerlessness or subjection, or to a person with no right or claim to receive kindness; kind and compassionate treatment in a case where severity is merited or expected, esp. in giving legal judgment or passing sentence. compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power
Forbearance, compassion, or forgiveness shown by God (or a god) to sinful humanity, or to a particular person or soul.
(I have received your great mercy, oh God!)
Looking further, I found that A.W. Tozer, in his book The Attributes of God,2 has a whole chapter devoted to God's mercy. This is some of what he has to say:
"According to the Old Testament, mercy has certain meanings: to stoop in kindness to an inferior, to have pity upon and to be actively compassionate. It used to be a verb form of the word compassion, but we don't use it anymore – maybe because we don't have the concept anymore. God actively 'compassionates' suffering men – I like that wonderfully well. For God to feel compassion at a distance is one thing, but for God to be actively compassionate with people is something else." -- A.W. Tozer
God turns mercy into a verb! Think about that. God "mercies" us. He actively "compassionates" us. In another place Tozer declares:
"Mercy is God's goodness confronting human guilt and suffering. When the goodness of God confronts human guilt and suffering, God listens, God hears, and the bleating of the lamb comes into His ear and the moan of the babe comes into His heart, and the cry of Israel comes up to His throne. The goodness of God is confronting human suffering and guilt, and that is mercy."3
God bending down to listen, God hearing our cries, God forgiving our weakness by the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus, who came down here and actively compassionated us, who suffered our sufferings and felt our pain, and carried our burdens, our guilt, our sin, our isolation and rejection all the way to the cross, so that He could bring us all the way home. Let Him actively compassionate you, dear one.
I am still searching out the full meaning and impact of mercy, but I leave you with some quotes and scripture verses that have touched me along the way.
"Because God is the living God, He can hear; because He is a loving God, He will hear; because He is our covenant God, He has bound Himself to hear us. If we can each one speak of Him as 'My God,' we may with absolute certainty say, 'My God will hear me.' Come, then, O bleeding heart, and let thy sorrows tell themselves out to the Lord thy God! I will bow the knee in secret, and inwardly whisper, 'My God will hear me.'" -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, "God Always Hears," Faith's Checkbook
"God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain..." ⏤ C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis (Sept. 2, 1949)
"The Holy Spirit does not come to you because you are perfect, but because you need Him." -- Derek Prince
"If you were a hundred times worse than you are, your sins would be no match for His mercy." -- Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet
The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness ... Exodus 34:6 (ESV)
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me (pursue me, chase me down) all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:6 (ESV)
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:21-23 (ESV)
"So remember that if you hadn't had the mercy of God all the time, stooping in pity, withholding judgment, you'd have perished long ago ... God is holding up His justice because He's having mercy. He is waiting because a Savior died. All of us are recipients of the mercy of God." -- A.W. Tozer4
Photo by Sheila Bair
1 definition from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance
2The Attributes of God, Volume 1: A Journey Into the Father's Heart. New ed. WingSpread Publishers, 2007. Chapter 5, God's Mercy.
Freshman Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt is facing two former state lawmakers in a Primary battle for House District 109. One is James Bush III, whom she ousted in an upset win two years ago. The other is Roy Hardemon, a new foe with a checkered legal past…
Freshman Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt is facing two former state lawmakers in a Primary battle for House District 109.
One is James Bush III, whom she ousted in an upset win two years ago. The other is Roy Hardemon, a new foe with a checkered legal past who has been trying nonstop for the last six years to regain a seat in the Legislature.
All were born, raised and continue to live in Miami.
Gantt, a teacher-turned-lawyer, unseated Bush in 2022 by fewer than 500 votes with ample support from notable Florida progressive like Senate Democratic Leader-designate Jason Pizzo, political strategist Christian Ulvert, gun control activist David Hogg and several nonprofits.
A longtime public figure then in his third House stint, Bush's cross-aisle relations enabled him to bring back millions to the district. But he attracted contempt from fellow Democrats for his support of so-called "red meat" legislation, casting the sole "yes" vote among Democrats for measures shortening the time in which women could get an abortionand restricting discussion of LGBTQ issues in public classrooms, among others.
Gantt, 39, now has the advantage of incumbency, a war chest more than five times as big as her two challengers and some legislative achievements to lean on.
During the 2023 Session, Gantt passed a bill requiring courthouses to provide private spaces for new mothers to nurse their babies. She also pushed through bills to provide $817,000 to a Broward County man who was wrongly imprisoned for 16 years and $500,000 for a Miami-based after-school and rehabilitation program.
Ashley Gantt is strongly positioned to defend her House seat. Image via Florida House.
Gantt failed to get any of the eight bills she sponsored in 2024 across the finish line, though she told the Miami Herald she secured $800,000 in state funds for local appropriations.
A former member of the Miami-Dade Citizens' Independent Transportation Trust, which oversees the use of billions of dollars generated through the county's "half-penny" surtax, Gantt says she'll seek investments in local eco-friendly public transportation development if re-elected.
She also vows to push for more equitable public school funding, increased teacher wages, more affordable housing options, pollution and sea-level rise solutions, criminal justice reform, and support for small businesses and job creation.
Through late July, she raised $61,500 through a blend of personal checks, political contributions and business donations. She also spent $35,000 on advertising, campaign merchandise, consulting fees and general campaign upkeep costs.
Bush, a 69-year-old retired teacher, first won state office in 1992. He's well known in his district and, prior to his 2022 loss, was selected by the nonprofit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade and Festivities Committee to serve as grand marshal of its 45th MLK Parade.
James Bush III hopes to begin his fourth stint in the Legislature. Image via Florida House.
He raised $7,500 by July 26 through 30 personal checks. Of the $4,500 he spent, more than half paid for campaign posters.
Bush doesn't appear to have much of an online presence. Florida Politics could not locate an active website for his campaign. His Facebook page, which is regularly updated and still lists him as a Representative, features many photos of him delivering oversized checks to local community organizations.
Hardemon, the 61-year-old uncle of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon, served in House District 108 from 2016 to 2018, before he lost in a Primary to Rep. Dotie Joseph. He complained at the time that his fellow Democrats had "lynched" him, accusing the party of racism against Black people, "especially Black men."
Joseph is Black, as are Gantt and Bush.
After two consecutive and unsuccessful attempts at gaining back the HD 108 seat, he's angling for its neighbor in HD 109.
Roy Hardemon is switching districts after back-to-back attempts at regaining his old House seat proved unsuccessful. Image via Florida House.
Hardemon's still-active re-election website from 2018 says he brought more than $2 million back to his district. He otherwise passed no legislation that added to, or altered, Florida Statutes.
If elected, he told the Miami Herald he wants to get more state dollars for Miami and combat gentrification in historically Black neighborhoods.
Through July 19, the last date from which his campaign finance information is available on the Division of Elections website, Hardemon raised $4,000 through six contributions. He reported spending nothing, but state records show he paid a four-figure qualifying fee.
Hardemon has a lengthy arrest record. By 2016, police had taken him into custody 19 times. Some of the arrests resulted in felony charges that were later dropped or pleaded down, including armed burglary, battery, criminal mischief and kidnapping.
HD 109 leans Democratic and spans north-central Miami-Dade County, including Miami Lakes, North Miami, Opa-locka, Brownsville, Liberty City and Overtown.
