Magnetic Mercy by Marcia Lee Laycock

My thoughts flew in a thousand directions. I couldn’t sleep. I tried to write, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried to pray, but my prayers lacked focus and depth. Until I appealed to that “magnetic mercy,” as C.S. Lewis called it -

And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless Thou in magnetic mercy to thyself divert Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert:
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great, Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

It’s easy to get lost in the “coinage of our own unquiet thoughts.” Trying to settle them, or even direct them along constructive paths, can be an exercise in frustration. This often happens in times of stress. It happens especially in times of grief. I believe it happened to Jesus, in that moment of grief so intense He wept blood. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus did what we are called to do. In those last hours before His arrest, He acknowledged His weakness and relied on His Father to do what He himself could not.

As we acknowledge our weakness, we are drawn to His mercy and the One who is eternally strong gives what is needed. In the case of Jesus, it was the strength to go to the cross. In my case, it was the words I needed and the confidence to write them.

How utterly astounding that mercy is, that the God of the universe should be as active in the lives of we who are so insignificant, as He was in the life of His Son, the Messiah. He does translate our “limping metaphor.” Romans 8:26 says – “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.”

May we all allow ourselves to be drawn to that “magnetic mercy.” May we allow the Spirit to translate our limping metaphors and direct our poorly aimed arrows of prayer. We can be assured, He will answer.


Marcia Lee Laycock, Author of One Smooth Stone