Those Who Sow In Tears Shall Reap with Shouts of Joy 

-

A Bottle of Your Tears

When I opened the gift from my friend, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. The small glass bottle was a beautiful cobalt blue, about two inches tall, covered in sliver filigree.

I thought it might be a perfume bottle, albeit a very small one, but her note explained that it was actually a tear bottle she’d found in an antique store in Israel. I did a little research and discovered that tear bottles were common in Rome and Egypt around the time of Christ. Mourners would collect their tears as they walked toward the graveyard to bury their loved one, a tangible indication of how much that person was loved. Sometimes women were even paid to follow the mourners and cry into such a vessel.

Apparently the more anguish and tears produced, the more important and valued the deceased person was perceived to be. But legend has it those mourners-for-hire who cried the loudest and produced the most tears received the greatest compensation.

I treasure this little blue bottle because it reminds me of a profound spiritual truth David wrote about in Psalm 56, when he was at one of the lowest points of his life. David had been captured by his enemies in Gath (he had actually feigned insanity to survive), but he found comfort in the fact that God saw everything he was going through and caught every single tear he shed.

I love David’s confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of God even when he himself had not been faithful to the Holy One. David knew without a doubt that Almighty God never misses a moment, a tear, or a sigh from any of His children. Do you rest in that truth, or do you question that God loves you that much?

Do you ever feel alone? Have you ever thought, “No one on this earth understands the depth of my suffering”?

If you’ve taken a wrong turn in the road, are you expecting God to hold back His mercy until you get back on the straight and narrow? That’s not the God David knew; that’s not the God of the Bible.

We have a Father who keeps track of all our wanderings and catches every single tear we cry. When we begin to grasp the depth of that truth, we can say with confidence just as David did,

This I know: God is on my side! — Psalm 56:9

Your heavenly Father knows your every struggle and never leaves your side.

Five Minutes in the Word

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? — Psalm 56:8 ESV

The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. — Psalm 34:17-18

He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. — Psalm 147:3

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! — Psalm 126:5 ESV

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. — Matthew 5:4 ESV

* * *
Excerpt from 5 Minutes With Jesus by Sheila Walsh.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You did it! Congratulations on finishing the Love Does Challenge

-
Image
You did it! Congratulations on finishing the Love Does Challenge! We pray that you've been inspired to go out and love others this month with an audacious love like Jesus!  Remember: love isn't something we do, it's someone we become as we start to live out God’s love for others on a daily basis. So if your journey still feels like a work-in-progress, and five days didn’t seem like long enough, we invite you to dive deeper into the Love Does experience by starting the five-week Bible study. This study is perfect for personal use or for small groups. Why not start a neighborhood group in your home and start loving on the people around you, right where you are? Invite your neighbors over for a Love Does video night! Or recommend the Love Does  study as your next church group experience!  Inside the Love Does study you’ll get: All 5 videos sessions with Bob Goff: 1) I’m With You; 2) Free to Fail; 3) Audacious Love; 4) Be Not Afraid; 5) Follow Me Discussion to...
Read more

Everyday Holy

-
Image
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  — Genesis 12:1-2   Sometimes when circumstances get too big or seem to be different from what I want, doubts start creeping in.  What if this isn’t the right thing? What if I heard God wrong? What if I’ve made a huge mistake? What if I’m totally screwing up my child and she ends up living in a van down by the river? I get scared. I realize this doesn’t make me different from anyone else. We all like to feel in control of every aspect of our lives, and it’s hard to surrender that control. It’s hard to say, “I trust You” — no matter what. One of the few constants in life is that things will always change. And I, like many others, hate change. It leaves me feeling unsettled, unsure, and insecure as I try to find new footing in different c...
Read more

Very Great in the Little Things

-
This God is our God. — Psalm 48:14 “God is great in great things, but very great in little things,” says Henry Dyer. A party stood on the Matterhorn admiring the sublimity of the scene, when a gentleman produced a pocket microscope and having caught a fly, placed it under the glass. He reminded us that the legs of the household fly in England are naked, then called attention to the legs of this little fly which were thickly covered with hair; thus showing that the same God who made the lofty Swiss mountain attended to the comfort of His tiniest creatures, even providing socks and mittens for the little fly whose home these mountains were. This God is our God! A doubting soul beheld a robin’s nest in a gigantic elm and heard a still small voice saying, “If God spent a hundred years in creating a tree like that for a bird, He will surely take care of you.” God is so interested that He takes us one by one and arranges for every detail of our life. To Him, there are no ...
Read more