What do you do with your sorrow, your tears and your anguish?
Some of you may have learned from the world to just "get it all out." Spew it out like hot vomit.
Some of you are stuffers. You keep a stiff upper lip and hold your feelings down, thinking to yourself "I shouldn't feel this way – this is not right." After all Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons used to sing: "Big girls don't cry," and many of our fathers taught us "Real men don't cry."
I hope you know there's a third way. The Bible is full of weeping. We have a group of Psalms called "Lament Psalms" that anticipate our need to give voice to our anguish, sorrow and tears. Among the many laments, Psalm 39:12 – 13 cries out "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears!" And then he goes so far as to express his frustration with God and says "Look away from me," (read "Go away from me, Lord. Get out of here").
What we learn from the presence of verses like this in Scripture is that we can be honest with God about our pain and anguish in our circumstances. Do you know this? Have you taught it to your children? Maybe you have learned, and maybe you have taught your children to be "piously dishonest." That's when you think "Well, I'm really upset, but my parents don't want me to talk like that, and my religious leaders taught me that God does not want me to talk like that. So I guess a Christian should just put on a happy face."
No. Speak to God about your distress. Jesus did. The writer of Hebrews says, "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears."
When did Jesus cry and express his anguish? You know. At the tomb of his friend Lazarus, "Jesus wept." Then, again, as he looked out over Jerusalem and wept over the city that would not receive him. And at the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus gave voice to the fact that he was "sorrowful to the point of death" sweating drops of blood, asking his Heavenly Father if the terrible cross he was about to experience, if possible, could be avoided.
Do you have grief? God welcomes you to express it to him. He understands your cry of desolation. How can he? Answer: When God the Son came into this world he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." And when heaven was shut up to him, he went on to the cross so that heaven would always be open to you. He died and rose again for you so that even if, in your desolation, you, Child of God, say to the Lord in a fit of anguish "Depart from me," he will not. Even when Peter said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man," Jesus came after him and stayed with him.
He will comfort you in your anguish. And the clock is ticking. In the providential care of God it is true that "weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." For some of you that night might be long. For some of you the morning might not break until heaven. But when and if you experience the comfort of God in this life, then what happens? Answer: God wants to use you to comfort someone else.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
That's right. You "weep with those who weep," and then, wondrously, God uses you to comfort someone else.
So be honest with God. Teach your children to be honest with God. And when you are comforted, be on notice that God wants you to step into the world of someone else who is suffering and comfort them.
Musings from Pastor John, July 26 , Click to Email Pastor John