A dad once told me, “I have no more tears to cry.” Night after night, often alone in a hotel room kneeling by his bed pouring his heart out to God, his broken heart, over a rebellious son, he cried out to Him and cried out all he felt, all his desires, all the pain of the son whom he loved, his prodigal son, he cried out night after night to God to save his soul. Many of those nights in a different hotel room, a new place, a new city, but the same burden, the same pleas, the same broken heart as he knelt by his bed before God, unseen by others but not unseen by God. His job though glamorous in the eyes of millions, could not compensate for his broken heart. His job took him to different cities, but nightly he could be found on his knees, broken, weeping from the pain of his lost son. Can you identify? Perhaps not a lost soul but something or someone else has broken your heart, caused or is causing your grief, deep deep pain. This dear man would weep over his lost son, and it got to the stage mentally, emotionally exhausted, drained, told me he had “no more tears to cry.”

 

David in Psalm 56:8 amidst his own emotional pain says,

“You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call; This I know, that God is for me.:”-{Psalm 56:8-9}.

 

HURRY UP GOD!

David had been secretly anointed king by Samuel under the direction of God, though Saul was still king. David was promised he would be king… and naturally, you would think this will happen soon, but it was approximately ten years later when he was made king of Israel! God had His timing and in wisdom would bring about His perfect plan in His perfect time for His Honor. And during this time in between David would learn many lessons as God taught him the way of trust.Trust in Him, His wisdom, will, and ways. He would draw David closer to Himself, to lean upon Him. David would learn about the LORD and also about himself. Faith is not developed in a Sunday school class- though we may be given information from His Word as preparation— faith is learned in the school of life and often that includes suffering and at times painful tears.

 

David had to wait, but it was not futile waiting, sitting around counting down the clock but learning of God.

We are often so impatient, we want and even demand things happen now, we don’t like to wait and we don’t like the process to play out slowly, we live in a world that we participate in and WE OURSELVES often add to the cause of such attitudes and actions….we want things done now, if not sooner, “But God…” is not enslaved to our desires for He has his timing and He unravels them some time slowly what seems an eternity to us, but along the way He is making a man, woman, boy or girl, a person of faith…and that does not happen instantaneously but takes time.

 

Remember Abraham. God called him to forsake all and follow Him. And in between Genesis 12 and 22 we see God making a man of faith. His life was not without failure or sin, moments, and events when in the crisis of faith he did not trust God to meet him but leaned to his own understanding, such as when under pressure was willing to sacrifice his wife to another in order to save his own skin. Remember his great words of faith and devotion when he said he and Isaac would go forward and worship God and return. He in obedience to God was willing to offer Isaac the son whom he loved and told him when asked where is the sacrifice, he replied the LORD would provide… he did not get to that place of faith in God overnight, …it took time, trials, and God making Himself known to him and developing him… to trust Him and the crisis showed that he did! He grew in his faith! And when tested his allegiance, trust was made known! His faith tested, his faith stood strong, the test of faith passed, God was honored and glorified.-{Read Rom 4:19-21}.

  • God uses trials and difficulties to build your faith, He is not out to destroy you but reveal Himself to you and through you as He develops your faith, confidence, and trust in Him!

 

We may look at His promise to David that he will be raised up by God to be king, and we assume this will be quick, the next thing and our attitude is “When is the day, do I have time to get ready?” And sometimes the way to the throne is through the briars of pain! David’s coronation would not happen quickly and along the road to the coronation was suffering… and David tells of his living like an “aimless fugitive” as the word “wanderings” in this verse means. But He who knows of each and every sparrow that falls and none outside of His view, apart from His will, knows David’s wandering and frequented with his suffering along the way and his tears along the way. And He is compassionately aware of your pain, and suffering along the road to your eternal Home with Him. He is not indifferent but intimately involved in developing you into a worshipper of His Son, weaning you off self-reliance to God dependency, and making you into a beautiful person of faith, a follower of Him… and the road to that development takes you through the road of trials, troubles, pain, suffering. But you never walk it alone!

  • “You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call; This I know, that God is for me.:”-{Psalm 56:8-9}

That dear man who said he had no more tears to cry. Heartbroken... but He who not only intimately is acquainted with every sparrow who falls from the sky, knowing where in the world, when and which sparrow, knows every tear you have cried and at times when exhausted and maybe even there now, you feel you have no more tears to cry, you are broken, wounded and tired, so very very tired. Listen to the words of David, who was promised by God he would be king someday and finds himself on the way to the throne, though it does not seem like it as he is hounded by Saul, who seeks to kill him, and the difficulties and pressures and pain of life close in on David,..

 

“You have taken account of my wanderings,”

As He is intimately acquainted, compassionately so of every sparrow that falls, who has numbered each and every hair on our head, whose precious thoughts towards us outnumber the grains of sand is intimately acquainted with David’s “wanderings” which is used to speak of an “aimless fugitive,” an innocent man on the run. David knows, he is not alone, for He sees, He understands. It is many many years ago at 2:20 in the morning when my disease was first in full outbreak I sat on a bed weeping from pain and the only word I could say was “You know,” I did not have to explain my pain for He who is my “Great” the word means “Superior” …”High Priest…. empathizes” which means He “feels the very feelings” we feel, understood… how sweet, comforting and kind to know He knows, He understands, and David says of Him in another time “You have taken into account my wanderings,” -You know!

 

“Put my tears in Your bottle.”

BOTTLED TEARS; I recently read of two glass urns found side by side from the Roman times, one contained the ashes of a person the other of water- the tears of friends for their loved one who had passed. They had allowed their tears to fall into the bottle and eventually, they were sealed and placed beside the ashes of the deceased.  The bottling of tears as a memorial. What a picture of empathy, and deep feelings for their friend. David uses a picture for us to illustrate how compassionate and comfort God imparted to him that he would say ALL of my tears are known by God and ALL of them are preserved and kept by God! So precious are you to God that, not only does God know the number of hairs upon your head, He also knows where they are if they have fallen out. He knows your tears, how many of them, the source of them and ALL of them are kept by God – so great and precious are you to Him! Jesus wept uncontrollably, He knows pain and sorrow… He was a man acquainted with sorrow and grief. We read in Hebrews 4 He is a Great High Priest who even now, as Lord who is adored and worshiped and yet the crescendo of praise that echoes in Heaven does not stop Him from empathizing with you, or the brokenhearted dad, for the word, “empathy” means “to feel the very feelings.” He is not indifferent but oh what a tender Shepherd of our souls He is… you never, ever cry alone! He is present with you, not with hardness but with tenderness and full of compassion for you. For the dear brokenhearted dad, He was there with Him. He is the lifter up of our head when we feel we cannot lift it one more time, we think we cannot go one more step, the burdens that weigh us down we read, “Blessed be the LORD who daily bears our burdens.” We can roll our burdens upon Him and know He cares. He knows where you have cried, how many tears, what caused your pain, hurt, sorrow and so precious are you that He has bottled them up, preserved them , “Oh how He loves you and me” the song goes… The wonderful TRUTH, there is a,” But God…” who has the final say, one day He Himself will end all the sorrow and the cause of your tears, the mightiest of Angels are not sufficient, compassionate enough or up to the job,” But God…” He Himself will PERSONALLY wipe away every tear and its source of pain from you.

  • Know how precious you are to Him
  • Know how intimately acquainted God is with you!
  • Know God

The word picture he uses was that of mourners, who would collect their tears by allowing them to fall into a bottle and gather them all and place them at the graveside of the departed person who has died as a remembrance. A remembrance of how much they were cared for, loved, and missed. It was an act of kindness. They bottled up their tears and placed them beside the grave. And so David uses this word to picture that God who is compassionate, and kind would gather up his tears, as the word for “tears” used here was not of a tear in the eye or a few tears shed but of “weeping!” David is weary, heartbroken and he turns not FROM God but TO God. How sweet the picture of a man in pain, not his pain, but what he does IN his pain… he turns to God…with his pain, and appeals to His care, His love, His compassion.

 

THE REBELLION OF FAITH!

And though his enemies are great…. he says “…This I Know God is FOR Me!” What confidence, what faith in times of crisis he TURNS TO GOD with his tears as it were, to a compassionate shoulder to cry on and makes this gigantic statement of faith not in time of leisure and plenty or comfort but in times of stress, “This I know…” What do you know David? “…God is for me!” His time of wanderings, the trials, and travails of life, the times and events that caused his tears, his weeping, was NOT an indication of God’s displeasure no matter what it LOOKED like, but an indication that despite what he was experiencing, painful as it was, he says with confident and triumphant assurance, that was greater than his circumstance, greater than his wanderings, greater than the events and people that had caused his tears…,,“This I Know… God IS…FOR…ME!” He REBELLED against what his circumstances said, he rebelled against his enemies, he rebelled, How? By… trusting God!

 

How often events that are against us, pressures that prolong and hound us we count as a sign that “God is AGAINST me…” Peter would write late on in life to those suffering ones, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;”-{1 Peter 4:12}. James would write and say “WHEN {not if} you encounter various trials.” -{Read James 1:2-4}.

 

Trials are to be expected, suffering is normal, and tears are inevitable in this life, they are God’s gift at times for us to release emotional pain, sorrow, compassion, and tears of love. tears of joy, tears of relief, tears shed as an identification towards a loved one departed… and in those times of pain and like that dad who knelt nightly often in a hotel room all alone yet not alone for He who is our Great High Priest Empathizes with us and that dear dad, seeing his tears fall, seeing him choke up as he would weep night after night not in anger but in love, broken-hearted love for a prodigal son…. though many years ago, He remembers for He has as it were bottled up all his tears, remembered the pain of this dear man…. and so with you too.

 

DOES GOD CARE?

At times you my think and wonder and doubt if God cares for you. He does, His cross the great testimony, His Word the assurance, His Spirit within to confirm, reaffirm and assure when voices of the evil one would seek to add to your pain and distract from His devotion to you.

He remembers every tear when you cried, what made you cry, the places you have cried, and His care, love, and compassion, for you, have not changed and today if you are there in that place of pain, know He cares, compassionately so. Your difficulties and trials are part of this life and place we live in which can be a vale of tears… and He as it were bottled them all up so precious are you to Him!

 

You never cry alone, no tear of yours is ever unknown to Him…

who cares for you and loves you and one glorious day He Himself will wipe away every tear FOREVER! Nothing or no one will ever hurt you again… for He has said, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”-{Rev 21;4-5}

Your tears are known by God, kept by God, treasured by God for they are your tears and you are His Beloved -{Read Rom 1:7}.

 

And what can we learn from David in his time of pain?

  1. The pain did not turn him from God but TO God. Allow your pain to turn you to Him who cares for you
  2. Troubles were not an indication of God’s DISPLEASURE, being against him, for God had promised that one day he would be king. God would use them to draw David closer to Himself. What the evil one means for evil God promises to work all things together for Good!-{Read Rom8:28-29}
  3. Though God’s promise seems to be delayed to you- In His time He will fulfill it. Hold onto Him who promises- For He is faithful to Keep His Word! {For David had been promised he would be king, yet it took time and through turmoil he endured on the way to that moment}.
  4. In your time of pain and tears “nail your flag to the mast” The expression was was in times past and spoke of A DEFIANT REFUSAL TO SURRENDER and FIGHTING TILL THE LAST MAN STANDING! David did this when he stated “This I Know” no matter what circumstances look like “God is for me!” Refuse to surrender to your circumstances, bleak and painful as they may be, and are, know they are not in charge, and though they are against you GOD IS FOR YOU! DEFIANT FAITH!
  5. God is making a man, woman of faith out of you, and these troubles, tears that as it were at times feel like a punch in the stomach God is using as stepping stones to make you a man, woman, boy, girl of DEFIANT FAITH, A REFUSAL TO SURRENDER TO CIRCUMSTANCES… Because you are learning, at times relearning, “THIS I KNOW, GOD IS FOR ME.” let this be the truth that encourages you today as you face it,” THIS I KNOW GOD IS FOR ME” and He is compassionate and aware of all my wanderings and bottles all of my tears and though the enemies be great against me HE IS GREATER! David testified in times of TEARS and DISTRESS, “This I Know, GOD IS FOR ME!”… And He is FOR…YOU TOO!
  1. PS. Do you know where all the tears that you have cried over the years are? He knows He treasures them for He treasures YOU.

God Bless,

Aidan,