Love has two lovely daughters, twins called grace and mercy. Like identical twins, they are often indistinguishable: Grace is the inner freedom to be merciful. Mercy is grace in action.
God’s Love: Grace
God does not choose to love the Israelites, anybody else, or us today because we are good. God loves us from a completely free, deliberate, and arbitrary choice. This recognition is the engine that drives the entire divine drama. Without it, we have nothing but sterile requirements and rituals. From the very beginning, receiving God’s love has never been a “worthiness contest.” This is very hard for almost everyone to accept.
God’s Unconditional Love
The word that is translated as “steadfast love” is often rendered “covenant love” or “faithful love.” Today we often call it unconditional love. It’s “one-sided love,” if you will, because Israel never keeps its side of the covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. Yahweh has learned to do it all from God’s side since we are basically unreliable as lovers.
Trust the River
We all want to manufacture an answer to take away our anxiety and settle the dust. To stay in God’s hands, to trust, means that we usually have to let go of our attachments to feelings–which are going to pass away anyway (which is the irony of it all). People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity, and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs certitude or perfect order all the time. The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.