Tears

When words fail, tears flow.

Tears have a language all their own, a tongue that needs no interpreter. In some mysterious way, our complex inner-communication system knows when to admit its verbal limitations ... and the tears come.

Eyes that flashed and sparkled only moments before are flooded from a secret reservoir. We try in vain to restrain the flow, but even strong men falter.

Tears are not self-conscious. They can spring upon us when we are speaking in public, or standing beside others who look to us for strength. Most often they appear when our soul is overwhelmed with feelings that words cannot describe.

Our tears my flow during the singing of a great, majestic hymn, or when we are alone, lost in some vivid memory or wrestling in prayer.

Did you know that God takes special notice of those tears of yours? Psalm 56:8 tells that He puts them in His bottle and enters them into the record He keeps on our lives.

David said, "The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping."

A teardrop on earth summons the King of Heaven. Rather than being ashamed or disappointed, the Lord takes note of our inner friction when hard times are oiled by tears. He turns those situations into moments of tenderness; He never forgets those crises in our lives where tears were shed.

One of the great drawbacks of our cold, sophisticated society is its reluctance to show tears. For some strange reason, men feel that tears are a sign of weakness ... and many an adult feels to cry is to be immature. How silly! How unfortunate! The consequence is that we place a watchdog named "restraint" before our hearts. This animal is trained to bark, snap, and scare away any unexpected guest who seeks entrance.

The ultimate result is a well-guarded, highly respectable, uninvolved heart surrounded by heavy bars of confinement. Such a structure resembles a prison more than a home where the tender Spirit of Christ resides.

Jeremiah lived in no such dwelling. His transparent tent was so tender and sensitive he could not preach a sermon without the interruption of tears. "The weeping prophet" became his nickname and even though he didn't always have the words to describe his feelings, he was never at a loss to communicate his convictions. You could always count on Jeremiah to bury his head in his hands and sob aloud.

Strange that this man was selected by God to be His personal spokesman at the most critical time in Israel's history. Seems like an unlikely choice - unless you value tears as God does. I wonder how many tear bottles in heaven are marked with his name.

I wonder how many of them bear your initials. You'll never have many until you impound restraint and let a little tenderness run loose. You might lose a little of your polished respectability, but you'll have a lot more freedom. And a lot less pride.

**Deepening Your Roots (You can click on the link below to go right to each Bible reference)

~ Lamentations 1:12-16; Lamentations 3:46-50; Jeremiah 50:4; Luke 7:36-50 ~

{ Branching Out }

When's the last time you cried?

If it has been months or years, ask God to bring something your way this week that could be the catalyst to cause tear drops to form and flow from your eyes.

Have you ever cried alongside someone else as he experienced grief or joy? Ask God to make your heart tender enough to hurt with others and free enough to cry with them.

If you find yourself crying this week, don't try to hide the tears from those around you. Tears are beautiful to God! And to God's people.

You Are Important

There is only one YOU.

Think about that. Your face and features, your voice, your style, your background, your characteristics and peculiarities, your abilities, your smile, your walk, your handshake, your manner of expression, your viewpoint ... everything about you is found in only one individual since man first began - YOU.

How does that make you feel? Frankly, I'm elated!

Dig as deeply as you please in the ancient, dusty archives of Homo sapiens and you'll not find another YOU in the whole lot. And that, by the way did not "just happen"; it was planned that way. Why? Because God wanted you to be YOU, that's why. He designed you to be a unique, distinct, significant person unlike any other individual on the face of the earth, throughout the vast expanse of time. In your case, as in the case of every other human being, the mold was broken, never to be used again, once you entered the flow of mankind.

Listen to David's perspective on that subject:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous - and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your Book! (Psalm 139:13-16 TLB).

If I read this astounding statement correctly, you were prescribed and then presented to this world exactly as God arranged it.

Reflect on that truth, discouraged friend.

Read David's words one more time, and don't miss the comment that God is personally involved in the very days and details of your life. Great thought!

In our overly-populated, identity-crisis era, it is easy to forget this. Individuality is played down. We are asked to conform to the "system." Group opinion is considered superior to personal conviction and everything from the college fraternity to the businessman's service club tends to encourage our blending into the mold of the masses.

It's okay to "do your thing" just so long as it is similar to others when they do "their thing." Any other thing is the wrong thing. Hogwash!

This results in what I'd call an image syndrome, especially among the members of God's family called Christians. There is an "image" the church must maintain. The pastor (and his staff) should "fit the image" in the eyes of the public. So should all those in leadership. Youth programs and mission conferences and evangelistic emphases dare not drift too far from the expected image established back when. Nobody can say exactly when.

Our fellowship must be warm, but filled with cliches. Our love must be expressed, but not without its cool boundaries. The creative, free, and sometimes completely different approach so threatens the keepers of the "image syndrome" that one wonders how we retain any draft of fresh air blown through the windows of flexibility and spontaneity.

My mind lands upon a fig-picker from Tekoa ... a rough, raw-boned shepherd who was about as subtle as a Mack truck on the Los Angeles-Santa Ana freeway. He was tactless, unsophisticated, loud, uneducated, and uncooperative. His name was Amos. That was no problem. He was a preacher. That was a problem. He didn't fit the image ... but he refused to let that bother him.

He was called (of all things) to bring the morning messages in the king's sanctuary. And bring them he did. His words penetrated those vaulted ceilings and icy pews like flaming arrows. In his own way, believing firmly in his message, he pounced upon sin like a hen on a june bug ... and the "image keepers" of Israel told him to be silent, to peddle his doctrine of doom in the backwoods of Judah. His rugged style didn't fit in with the plush, "royal residence" at Bethel (Amos 7:12-13).

Aware of their attempt to strait-jacket his method and restructure his message, Amos replied:

... I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel" (Amos 7:14-15 NIV).

Amos was not about to be something he wasn't! God made him, God called him, and God gave him a message to be communicated in his own, unique way. A Tekoa High dropout had no business trying to sound or look like a Princeton grad.

Do I write to an Amos? You don't "fit the mold"? Is that what sent you down into the valley of discouragement? You don't sound like every other Christian or look like the "standard" saint ... or act like the majority?

Hallelujah! Don't sweat it, my friend. And don't you dare change just because you're outnumbered. Then you wouldn't be YOU.

What the church needs is a lot more faithful figpickers who have the courage to simply be themselves, regardless. Whoever is responsible for standardizing the ranks of Christians ought to be shot at dawn. In so doing they completely ignored the value of variety, which God planned for His church when He "arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be" (1 Corinthians 12:18).

You are YOU. There is only one YOU. And YOU are important.

Want to start feeling better? Really desire to dispel discouragement? I can say it all in three words:

Start being YOU.


**Deepening Your Roots

~ Genesis 37:19;Genesis 40:1-8;Romans 12:3-8;Philippians 2:1-4 ~


{ Branching Out }

Name 5 things you like about yourself that are unique to you.

Name someone you don't like or enjoy being around. Now, name three positive things about that person that says s/he is a special individual.

Write a friend and tell her three things you like about her that make her a unique person.