Of the seven spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12, the last — and I believe the most powerful but least appreciated and most abused — is mercy.

As I watch and sense what God is doing with an emerging new spiritual generation, I see that their dominant characteristic is mercy. I also have begun to realize that God wants to use “mercies” (those with the primary spiritual gift of mercy) as catalysts to unleash additional gifts in others. That, in turn, will bring this rising generation to new pastures where God’s presence can dwell among us.

This doesn’t mean everyone in this new spiritual generation has mercy as their dominant individual spiritual gift. But as a whole, they nonetheless seem to collectively exhibit the main motivations of mercy — which are a deep, personal craving for the presence of God and for genuine intimacy with others.

As a result, this rising generation has little interest or patience with the moral and cultural wars of my generation, or with our prevailing hypocrisy as we tried to fix everyone else but failed to exhibit God’s presence in our own lives. Nor can they understand the isolation, loneliness and lack of authentic community among older Christians.

My generation is characterized more by the gift of “ruler” than “mercy”. But our day — with the need to control, the need to bring order, the need to tell others what’s wrong with them while ignoring the problems in our own churches, and the need to always contend – is passing.

Some from my generation — but not many — see that God is birthing a new generation rooted in mercy and are willing serve as a bridge by patiently honoring, affirming and mentoring them. Most of my peers, however, only shake their heads in bewilderment. They barely tolerate this new generation (which can include believers of all ages who are willing to “be” where God is going, but nonetheless is skewed towards twenty and thirty “somethings”). Instead, they keep preaching the same old performance-based “oughts” that, frankly, never worked very well in their own lives and ring hollow to others.

This rising generation does not care about my generation’s “oughts” — you know: we ought to pray, and let me tell you how; we ought to read the Bible, and let me tell you how often; we ought to hear God, and let me tell you how he speaks and how to hear him, etc., etc., ad nauseum. As a result, my generation wonders why we get nothing but polite indifference from those who instead crave more than anything the presence of God and the presence of authentic, intimate fellowship with each other.

This new generation just wants to enjoy God’s presence and each other, and my generation generally doesn’t “get” it. As result, generational blessings have not yet flowed from us to them, or from them to us. Regardless, God is going to use mercies to bridge the generations and also unleash his presence and his gifts in a powerful new way.

A fundamental problem I keep encountering, however, is the lack of mature, healthy ”mercies” within my generation and among this emerging generation. If God is truly bringing forth a mercy generation, then some with the gift of mercy will need to be the catalyst. But if all of our mercies are wounded or insecure, how can that happen?

Within my generation I have met very few mercies who have not been deeply wounded, either spiritually, emotionally or both. My generation, with our predominate “ruler” spirit, has mercilessly misused the mercies among us by seeking the comfort of their grace while stomping on their hearts.

My generation’s mercies also have enabled way too many corrupt and abusive leaders by appearing to stand by them when God was wanting to prune them from our ranks. When mercies finally realize — way too late and usually after the fact — how badly abusive “leaders” have used their appearance of support (often due to a reluctance to speak up or hesitations over leaving unhealthy situations) to maintain the prerogatives of power and position, they become overly cautious, withdrawn and reserved.

Within this rising spiritual generation, however, such wounding is not so much the problem. But nearly every younger mercy I’ve meet nonetheless is insecure over who they really are in Christ — which is hardly surprising, given how much mercies are overlooked and under appreciated even by those who crave mercy.

As I see all this, my own spirit deeply, deeply grieves over their plight. The Father wants to bring them into wholesome completeness and maturity — if they’d only let him! The difficulty they face is being willing to go to the painful origins of the wounds and insecurities in their lives, where the Lord is patiently waiting to meet, heal and passionately embrace them. (See my blogs, Woundedness and God Shows Up.) If they can find the strength to go there, the Lord can, and will, bring health.

This is crucial not only for the sake of mercies themselves, but also because God has called some mercies to be vital catalysts for what he wants to do among us. If they are not healthy, God won’t fully unleash his presence or his additional spiritual gifts among us.

Recently, God blessed me by bringing a couple of mercies into my life who had enough health — not perfect health, but enough health — to be willing to risk transparency. Their special gift of “presence” — both their own presence and God’s presence — bought forth a profoundly new level of life in me. As a result, my own gifts were unleashed like never before.

It took me awhile to realize what was happening, but I eventually understood that they were the catalyst God was using to quicken and enliven — in ways I never felt before — my abilities to see and understand where God wants to take his people and to also develop the resources God needs to make that happen.

It’s not that they did anything. Rather, it was simply their willingness to be part of my life — regardless of their own hurts and insecurities and their natural tendency to stay within a protected zone of comfort instead of risking change — that caused my own, different gifts to come forth. They gave me the gift of their presence, and thus the gift of God’s special presence and intimacy within them, and it was wonderfully transforming.

I came to realize, as I started hearing of this also happening in others, that some of the mercies among us are the key to God’s plans. Without them, this new generation will not find its full destiny and my generation will never experience the blessing of final closure on the good that we did — despite our mistakes.

I’ve been fortunate. God has brought mercies in and out of my life who’ve been willing — to some degree — to be transparent, despite my own insensitivities and frequent mistakes. But the wounding and insecurity that’s so prevalent among mercies, and that keeps them from unleashing God’s full blessings on the rest of us, haven’t happened by accident. Satan is able to sense where God is moving, and has not wasted the last decades as he’s tried to thwart God’s future plans by “taking out” as many mercies as possible.

Within my generation, God has sprinkled “mercies” among us to help usher in the fullness of his unfolding purpose among this rising generation. Those older mercies are strategically positioned to be a bridge into God’s new anointing. It’s not, however, that they will lead or be on the forefront of change — that certainly is not the personality of a mercy or their calling!

Rather, as they get healthy enough to become transparently engaged in the lives of those around them, and then become mature enough to find validation in God’s pleasure as they do so (instead of how others respond to or treat them — see my blog, Gifts, Calling and Validation), they will create an environment that refreshes and enlivens God’s gifts in others. Then, as the full plethora of God’s gifts comes forth, we all — mercies and non-mercies alike — will be swept into those new places where God wants his presence to abide.

Thus, mercies won’t often be at the front of the line directing or teaching or exhorting or helping us get to God’s new pastures, but they nonetheless must be the catalyst for God unleashing those who will. And that’s both the promise, and the problem.

Because of their past wounds and insecurities, and also as a function of their temperament, they typically don’t want change. Rather, they crave the peace, calm and stability of the status quo of where God has been meeting them. As they take the chance on relating to those around them, however, and God’s gifts are triggered in others (without even trying but simply as a result of the sweet presence of God within them), that can become threatening to them. After all, many of the other spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12 are change oriented, and once they unleash those gifts, change is inevitable. But an immature mercy does not want change!

So here’s the dilemma for the mercy. In their past wounding and insecurity, and generally due to their personality, they avoid change. However, if they are willing to risk transparent relationships with those around them (and it normally is very difficult for them to be transparent except with their one or two closest, most trusted friends) and to radiate God’s special presence, it will unleash gifts of change in others. If a mercy is not healthy and secure, the change they unleash — without even trying! – will cause them to pull pack.

The other dilemma for the mercy is that they crave God’s presence in their lives and circumstances more than anything else. How they’ve known and experienced God can become their idol — and the status quo of God’s past or current presence makes it hard for them to see when God is moving to new places. If they react to the discomfort of the change they unleash in others, and fail to see that God is using those other gifts to lead his people to new pastures, they will stay behind and miss God’s future presence.

By holding onto God’s past or even current presence, they miss his future presence.

God is not passive. Although he does not typically call mercies to be the ones who lead his people to new pastures, he certainly wants to use them to unleash those gifts in others. But a measure of health is required for a mercy to relate to others beyond their very tight circle of very private friends, and to be emotionally and spiritually transparent. Even more health is needed to then enjoy and embrace the resulting change they unleash.

When this happens, they often mistakenly feel that what’s changing is the nature of God presence in their lives, which feels like death to them. But that’s not the case, and they need to cultivate the maturity to understand that what’s changing are the places and the circumstances where God meets them, rather than the sweetness of His presence as he woes them forward.

To the mercies among us, I know how hard it is to give the gift of yourself, and the gift of God’s presence within you, because many have abused and failed to honor you in the past. But understand that God loves you in a deep way that few can understand, and he is calling you to health and to find validation in his pleasure.

God’s plans, and his future presence in your lives, depend on you being the catalyst for the gifts he wants to bring forth in others. The inevitable changes that result are not your burden or responsibility — God will use others for that. But learn to sense and feel and experience and enjoy God’s presence even in the midst of change. In fact, you have an additional vital role in testing and affirming God’s presence in new places — thus confirming that God is where others lead us. But you must be healthy to do that — otherwise your hurts and securities will cloud your ability to clearly sense God’s moving presence.

If you don’t make this transition, God will still love and abide with you — but you will have missed his perfect will and that, more than anything, will be devastating to you. Maybe not now, but eventually and for the rest of your life.

The Lord is not calling you to lead his flock to new pastures or to bear the burden of change — others will do that — but neither is he going to take us there unless you allow your sweet, sweet presence, and God’s sweet, sweet presence in you, to birth additional gifts in others. You are the gatekeepers. If you are willing to do this, the presence of God that so deeply defines you will be more evident and the abiding promises he’s given you will be fulfilled in ways you can’t even imagine.

It will be messy, and at times it will make you feel vulnerable and exposed, but God will affirm you and clothe you in his grace and presence in ways you can’t imagine as you bring forth his grace and presence in others.

That’s your hope, and that’s your challenge.

(c) Copyright 2009, Fulcrum Ministries. All Rights Reserved.