When The Storm Comes, God Sees Your Tears
It can often feel that in the darkest of our nights God is nowhere to be found. When the storm destroys. When our spouse leaves us. When all we know is loneliness. Where can we turn for hope?
PSALM 56: 8-11
"You have kept count of my tossing; put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord,
whose word I praise, in god I trust;
I shall not be afraid."
I believe God put Psalm 56 in the Bible for people who feel forgotten in their pain. This Psalm says that every tear David has cried, God has placed in a bottle. It’s this intimate imagery that God is near in our hurt. The God of the universe, hearing millions of prayers at any given time, is aware of every tear that leaves your eyes.
Let that sink in. There is not a drop of water that has fallen from your eye that God has not seen. Ever. From the burdens you felt as a 3 year old. To the weights of your teen years. To the anxieties of your young adulthood, to the complexities of old age. Every burden, painful moment, and anxiety you have faced, God is aware of.
WHY DOES GOD REMEMBER OUR TEARS?
Have you ever thought about the reason we cry? Why would God create a physical act to coincide with our emotional feelings? One reason may be for the social aspect it provides. Think about how difficult pain is when you are alone in it. Tears communicate to others your need for support and love. So in one way, God’s designing of tears was actually a design born from His care for us. That tears would symbolize “I’m hurting” to those near us. If they communicate our pain to those around us, how much more to God?
Psalm 56 teaches us that God does not simply dismiss our pain. He doesn’t acknowledge it and then move on. No, he records them. He keeps record. Personal. Intimate. Caring. This is who our God is.
How beautiful does this make our God? That He is telling us He is aware of every tear we cry? And every tear we suppress because of foolish cultural standards, sinful understanding of masculinity, or the thousands of other reasons we do not allow tears to fall.
Friends, God is not unaware of our struggles. He is not apathetic to our pain. He is not withdrawing from our confusion. Whether it’s with sin, anxiety, depression, loneliness, confusion, loss, doubt, or any other type of pain you face. He understands, because Jesus felt the burdens we feel. (Hebrews 4:13-16) Wasn't Jesus lonely? Didn't He taste abandonment from God on the cross? Didn't He sense anxiety in the garden when he was sweating blood? Didn't He live day after day with people who doubted who He was, constantly misunderstood? Didn’t He weep at the loss of his friend, Lazarus?
A TENDER KING
Because Jesus felt all that we would feel during His time on earth, we do not have a King so lofty and above our difficulties that He sweeps away our tears with disdain. No, we have a tender King who has descended into the pain with us so that we would not cry alone.
Jesus understands where you are, more than you realize. May this Psalm be a gentle reminder, your pain is not unseen by the Lord. For now, we have his promises to comfort us. They help us trust in the Lord when it is difficult to see the reasonings and the whys. But soon, we will hear with our own ears and feel on our own faces, the gentle hands of God, wiping away our tears—
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Revelation 21:3-5
Until that day, do not forget that He is aware. He is putting things in motion to show His care for you. And all of this is for sinners, whom He loves.
Blessings,
Josh.
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