Merciful and Gracious

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”
~ Exodus 34:6-7

The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
~Psalm 103:8-12

I’ve been drawn to Psalm 103 quite frequently over the last year and a half. Recently, I was struck by how much this Psalm echoes what we learn about God in the book of Exodus. In Exodus, the question of ‘Who is YHWH (the LORD)?’ comes up quite often. YHWH acts on behalf of his people Israel that they (and the Egyptians) might know he is the true and living God. Exodus 34:6-7 tell us exactly who YHWH is, a God merciful and gracious.
In Psalm 103 David uses the very same wording regarding the LORD’s mercy and graciousness. While in Exodus 34, it is the LORD who reveals these truths about himself to Moses, in Psalm 103 it is David who declares and repeats these truths.
So what’s the significance of all this? What strikes me is the fact that God made himself known to Israel through word and deed. Their redemption from Egypt was a clear and visible sign of God’s character. His words to Moses on Mt Sinai, gave further information about his character. A few hundred years later, David reiterates the words of Moses, no doubt being very familiar with them. Yet in Psalm 103, David writes as one who has, himself experienced this God, powerful, merciful, and gracious. He doesn’t just recall the history of Israel surrounding the Exodus. God is clearly a part of David’s own experience.
I pray that I would be eager to know this God who, in his awesome mercy, reveals himself to me in both his written word and his powerful deeds in my life and the lives of those around me.