Perhaps another description for this redemptive gift could be “healer” as they have a heart (mercy) for the spiritually broken.

Design

• They are very emotional.
• They usually have a huge number of acquaintances, but only a few close intimate friends.
• They crave physical contact and need to touch and hug people.
• They are slow to make transitions because they need emotional processing to disengage emotionally from one place and re-engage in another place.

Strengths

• They can easily sense the wounded ones in a crowd no matter how good the plastic smile is.
• They rarely have enemies, and they easily get along with just about anybody in any context.
• They are easily trusted. People can safely come to them and share their hearts, hurts, pain…
• They have the ability to know God’s heart, but usually cannot explain why God’s will is the way it is.
• They love to worship and a mature mercy can enter much easier into the presence of God than any other gift.

Weaknesses

• They hate confrontation because they are designed to keep people from hurting.
• They are prone to being indecisive because they do not want to hurt somebody and easily pass the responsibility to make a decision to someone else therefore they are easily abused.

Caution

They easily fall for the lie:

"I am worthy if I feel loved."

They find fulfilment in intimacy, but this makes them also an easy target for victimisation.

Therefore, their most important principle is to understand God's fulfillment. (Finding fulfillment by accepting God's love)

Based on the teachings of Kanaan Ministries and Arthur Burk of the Sapphire Leadership Group.