The Blessed Gift Of Tears??? A Word from THE WORD!!! #155

I know this may seem like a strange subject in considering being thankful and grateful to our God, but for many it will hit a note of familiarity, for tears truly are a language that God understands; for HE made us with the ability to cry, and I praise HIM for it.  Yet often we suppress the natural gift of tears, we don’t want to have a ‘blubbery face’ showing in public; we don’t want people to know how we really feel; we don’t want others to know how badly we are hurting; and reasons that we don’t have time to list.  I have long had a problem with ‘tears’ but not in the sense you might think, I didn’t have any grandmothers growing up, for they both died before I was born, and I only had one grandfather still living, but he lived way out in the swamps on a bayou in Louisiana, and we didn’t see him very often for my dad was in the Navy and we moved a lot.  But when I was in about the 4^th grade we were living in Mobile, AL (which I still call home) my mother heard that her dad was not well and she made a trip to see him and brought him home with her to live with us—and that was a precious time for we children, as we had never had a grandparent involved in our lives.  He was funny and told us stories, he sassed my mother (which amazed us, for we sure dared not!), and was just a blessing to us.  Well, he died after only a few short months with us, and we traveled back to Louisiana for his funeral and burial in the family cemetery there.

At the funeral, I was stricken with sorrow and started to cry but I had no hankey or tissues and didn’t want to embarrass myself with that ‘blubbery face’, so I learned my first lesson in “stuffing” it; and it’s a lesson that showed back up throughout my life.  But we must understand that God gave us tears as an outlet, a cleanser for the soul, if you would; a mechanism to relieve our grief, fear, sorrow, anger, joy, and frustration—an ‘all-in-one’ safety trigger.  But of course we intelligent humans do our best to short-circuit God’s goodness, and this is just another one of those foolish attempts to be “smarter than The Creator”! God gave us tears to bless us, to relieve some of our suffering and the results of being ‘fallen man’!  Let’s consider some things that scripture reveals about tears, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn to appreciate them more, and use them wisely!

“Thou tellest my wanderings:

put thou my tears into thy bottle:

are they not in thy book?

9 When I cry unto thee,

then shall mine enemies turn back:

this I know;

for God is for me.

10 In God

will I praise his word:

in the LORD

will I praise his word.

11 In God

have I put my trust:

I will not be afraid

what man can do unto me.”  Psalm 56:8-11

Oh, to remember the goodness and faithfulness of our God.  Job in the midst of some of the greatest trials ever, kept declaring his faith in God—despite the questionable help of his “friends”!

“Also now, behold,

my witness is in heaven,

and my record is on high.

20 My friends scorn me:

but mine eye poureth out tears

unto God.”  Job 16:19-20

Sometimes our tears come on the behalf of others—those who are in trouble, in deep need of God’s help—when we can do little else but pray and weep!  God hears, sees, and knows!

“They that sow in tears

shall reap in joy.

6 He that goeth forth and weepeth,

bearing precious seed,

shall doubtless come again

with rejoicing,

bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5-6                   (Sheaves being the harvest of the labor of tears!)

One of my favorite books of The Bible is the book of Jeremiah—the ‘weeping prophet’!  Why the weeping prophet?  For a lot of reasons, but mainly because he loved his people, and while he faithfully proclaimed God’s warning of coming judgment if they would not repent (much like where we are today, perhaps?) and the response was at the most, negligible, and came with ridicule, torture, pain, and a grief that we can barely understand.  Yet, God promised Jeremiah that there would be relief—a relief that he wouldn’t live to see, but a relief and restoration of Israel that would come.  May we be found as willing and faithful as Jeremiah to proclaim truth even when it brings tears, grief, heartache, or ridicule!  God IS faithful and HE knows your pain, your heartache, your sorrow for the sin of our nation, the tears that we shed in prayer for HIS provision, and revival!  So, my friends “weary not in well doing”, but press on faithfully and let those tears flow when they need to—don’t suppress the feelings that God has given you!  HE IS coming to redeem HIS own, and HE will wipe away the tears that we shed before HIM!

“Thus saith the LORD;

Refrain thy voice from weeping,

and thine eyes from tears:

for thy work shall be rewarded,

saith the LORD;

and they shall come again

from the land of the enemy.

17 And there is hope in thine end,

saith the LORD,

that thy children shall come again

to their own border.”  Jeremiah 31:16-17

Amen and Amen!!!