Justice or Mercy

Last week we learned about the difference between justice and mercy and then asked to write our own lesson plan on how we would teach justice and mercy. Our teacher gave us the idea to give this lesson as a family home evening so I did! I decided to give my lesson tonight and I started my lesson off with asking "what seems better to you, justice or mercy?" and everyone (mom, dad and brittany) answered mercy, I on the other hand answered justice when my teacher posed this question to the class. I feel like "hey I'm not that bad of a person but, all the bad people should feel the suffering that they've put others through!" Which is obviously not a great way to think and I quickly changed my answer to mercy after reading a couple of verses is Alma 43. So then I had two chairs on my right and left side, both seemed very appealing. One had some expensive and shiny objects on it and the other had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and other gorgeous things. I had my sister come up to me and tell me she had cheated on a math test and then asked me what side she should go on (the sides being a hypothetical heaven). I told her the side with the shiny, expensive objects was the side for justice and if she wanted to go there I had to give her a minor punishment. Then I told her that the side with the flowers was the side for mercy and if she asked for forgiveness and took advantage of Jesus Christ atoning of our sins, she would not need to be punished and she could live happily on the beautiful side. I proceeded to ask every family member which side they want to be on and they all said the side with mercy. Both mercy and justice are appealing to us humans because we always want what we deserve which entails seeing others get the punishment they deserve. Luckily for me, I was raised in the church and I am knowledgable enough to know that justice may seem fantastic now on earth but in the long run, I want mercy to help us all when judgement day comes. No human is perfect but God does recognize when we have good intentions and when we genuinely feel sorry for a sin. That is such a comforting thought, to know God knows us and knows our thoughts and feelings and loves us enough to forgive us for our imperfections.

XOXO,

Chloe.