Are you in a season of tears? Is the anguish of consequences from misdeeds long ago repented of still lingering? Is the anxiety climbing as you consider future financial prospects in light of your current bank account status? Is fear mounting as you wait for the subsequent treatments or to hear about the pending diagnosis? Is pressure building as you endure your children’s or grandchildren’s decisions? Are tears falling from engaging in that sin you said you wouldn’t ever do again? Are the tears niggling for reasons you don’t quite know because everything around you seems to be going so well?
Perhaps you’re in a season where tears are coming and going. Let me encourage you; it is in those seasons that God is doing his most incredible work. Through tears wrought within the peril and weakness of a Christian’s pilgrimage, God is bending low to hear His child’s cries.
The Psalmist unhesitatingly declares that God stores away our tears, “You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle” (Ps 56:8).
Isaiah expectantly informs Hezekiah after he wept bitterly before the Lord, “Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 20:5).
In this season…
- Be careful not to elevate your interests and ambitions. Oswald Chambers argues that if that is the case, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests (Utmost, Nov 10).
- Be careful that you’re not allowing yourself to descend into self-pity. To this, Chambers continues, “Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy ‘world within the world,’ and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being ‘frost-bitten’” (Utmost, Nov 10).
In a season of tears, the Christian embraces this one great principle. An aspect of existence that Peter and all the followers of Christ must embrace:
Christ is sufficient.
Christ’s sufficiency is therefore exemplified in that (1) He not only satisfied the Law (which we broke and became cursed) in His life, (2) He took our curse on the cross for the sin of mankind in His death, and (3) He conquered sin and death in His resurrection. The promise is life beyond this life for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Thus, practically speaking, our tears have a purpose:
- They remind us of our need.
- They remind us that even Christ’s tears fell.
- They remind us that tears will one day be no more.
“…and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4
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