A Heart of Mercy: Balancing Righteousness and Grace

Woke early. The room still held its silence. I found myself thinking about Matthew 5:7 and James 2:13—mercy and judgment, righteousness and grace.
It’s striking how different the posture must be:
With myself, I know I’m called to a kind of ruthless honesty. No excuses, no softening the edges. Righteousness means naming what is broken in me, what I’d rather leave hidden. I feel the ache of that—how easy it would be to justify, to explain, to self-protect. But I want to be clean before God, not just clever.
With others, though... I feel the shift. Mercy moves in.
If I’ve never failed—or never admitted it—I’ll always be tempted to condemn someone else’s collapse. But when I look back on my own weakness, my own mistakes, I can’t help but whisper: “Lord, have mercy on me—and on them too.” Because we’re all just fragile vessels, doing the best we can under pressures we can’t name.
Today, I feel the cost of judging harshly. I’ve seen the hurt it causes. And I wonder—when I stand before Christ, will I want Him to weigh me with mercy? If so, then I must weigh others the same. I must choose tenderness, not because they deserve it, but because I know how much I’ve needed it.
So this morning, my prayer is simple:
Let me be rigorous with my own heart, but soft toward theirs.
Let mercy be the rhythm that carries me—not just in judgment, but in daily presence.