The Redemptive Gift of Mercy Stronghold and Strength of Emotionality
The redemptive gift of mercy stronghold of emotionality works because Mercies have such a natural ability to find heart alignment and empathy. Some have called mercies the empaths of the world. The classic example of this is a mercy entering a room full of people and quickly sensing who is hurting in the room, going to them, and connecting with that person through compassion.
The motivation of mercies is heart alignment, to “be with.” Jehovah Shammah (Ezekiel 48:35) – the
Lord is Present or “with” us. Mercies can easily align to God’s heart through their natural empathic ability and can align with others, therefore helping others align to God. They can be a sort of middleman. This is a wonderful gift.
The redemptive gifts can be divided up in categories of Kinesthetic, Cognitive, and Emotive. Prophet and Servant are kinesthetic – they take action first, and think and feel second. Teacher, Giver, and Ruler are cognitive – they think first and feel second. Exhorter and Mercy are the two emotive gifts. Just as we considered Owen Wilson movies where he uses emotionally fun connection to bypass his character issues, there are many shows and movies where a mercy is depicted as freaking out emotionally. Note the mercy stronghold of emotionality Steve Carell in The Office, or Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Mercies are driven by this heart-to-heart connection, yet, not everyone wants to connect. Life throws challenges at all of us wherein we don’t feel very connected to God, others, or ourselves. This can lead to the stronghold.
The Redemptive Gift of Mercy Stronghold of Emotionality
As one of the emotive gifts, mercies can end up living for this feeling of emotional fulfillment they get when hearts are aligned in connection. If not God directed, this fulfillment drive can turn into self-gratification through dysfunctional connections with people, food, sex, and other things.
There are 3 vulnerabilities common to man:
- To promote ourselves
- To protect ourselves
- To provide for ourselves
If the mercy is feeling vulnerable and needing to protect his heart, he will gravitate to relying on his natural strength. He will seek to connect to someone or something for fulfillment.
With the mercy being an emotive gift, they usually have a keen sensitivity to the spirit realm. Of course, this can be a positive and a negative. They commonly enter into praise and worship quite easily and have the ability to truly sense the heart of God. Many musicians, artists, dancers, and painters are mercies as they tend to use their talents to reach out and connect with others.
Mercies feel very deeply. They are highly sensitive to the emotions around them, however, they cannot get their needs met – promoting, protecting, or providing for themselves – through these means.
We All Battle the Mercy Stronghold of Emotionality at Some Level
We can all battle feeling disconnected, that we have somehow displeased God or other people and so are left out. This can lead to works in order to somehow gain favor. Manipulation, control, or tapping into others’ emotions are all ways we try to comfort ourselves when we feel alone or rejected.
Overcoming
Like all the gifts, heart connection also has to go on the altar as a living sacrifice. The creative drive to connect emotionally with other people, with music, with art, with interior design that brings a wonderful ambiance, are all wonderful things. Yet, that can’t rule us.
We all have times we must live by faith regardless of feelings. Knowing our identity is in being a child of God whether we feel connected to Him or not at the time, is how the mercy overcomes and matures into their destiny.
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