What To Do With Our Tears
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Psalms 126:1-6: “A Song of Ascents. When the LORD restored the fortunes of
Psalms 39:12-13: "Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers. 13 Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!"
We’re in a short series for eight weeks in the Psalms. The purpose of this series, as we state each week, is to better understand what to do with our emotions as followers of Jesus.
Now, some of you are attracted to the preaching of God’s Word because of the intellectual and doctrinal benefits that you gain each week. You might be someone who is not as interested in a series like this because you see discussions on emotions as boring or even unhelpful. Yet when we come to the Psalms we are confronted with a vivid and raw portrayal of human emotions that cover 150 Psalms. These Psalms are filled with the outpouring of the human heart to God in song, poetry and prayer. They are intense, can often be shocking in their honesty, and are placed in Scripture to teach us something about how to deal with our emotions.
In fact, I find it interesting that there is a kind of correspondence between those who want more doctrinal teaching and those who struggle deeply with their emotional life. It is often those who are not quite aware of what to do with their emotions, or those who feel shame over their emotions who have the hardest time with these messages. And the reason is simple; you’ve been taught that to be a Christian, to be religious, means that you have to control your emotions by either ignoring them or actively stuffing them down.
Others might feel as if to be truly honest, you must let your emotions run their course, no matter where they take you. You have believed the lie that your emotions are a mark of being in touch with yourself and to not let them out when they come is to lie to yourself and to others.
So, the confusion is great on what to do with our emotions. Do we stuff them down as the religious teach us or do we vent them whenever they come as the liberals teach us?
The Psalms provide another way for us. They never suggest that we stuff them down and control them and they never suggest that we become their slaves and let them rule us. In the Psalms we see neither ignorance towards emotions nor a fascination with emotions. Instead the Psalmists show us that we’re to bring them to God and pour them out and process them before Him. We’re to come to Him in grief, pain, struggle, doubt, anger, fear, suffering, guilt and open our hearts wide so that we can be honest with God and yet because of His grace, feel safe to share our deepest struggles.
So we come again to the Psalms and learn how to handle another common emotional experience, the experience of our tears.
Tears are an amazing and mysterious physiological response to our emotions. We can cry from joy; we can cry from laughter; we cry from physical pain; and most often we cry from a heart wound of sorrow where the emotional stress becomes so great that our eyes weep.
And the tears that are the result of deep emotions have a different chemical makeup than those that are used to simply lubricate our eyes when they get dry. Emotional tears contain more protein-based hormones and even a natural pain-killer are unique to these tears.
And though animals produce tears which lubricate their eyes when something is in them or for physical pain, humans are the only ones that cry when we sense something is wrong with our souls, ourselves, our deep inner sense. If we’re honest we’ll have to admit that we often cry more from soul-pain than we do physical pain. It’s an amazing and mysterious reaction to the realization that something is wrong with our inner selves or this world.
So what do we do with our tears? How are we to handle our grief and sorrow? What can help us when our souls are so sorrowful that they bleed tears?
I believe these two Psalms will help us to know how to understand our tears as well as how to practice emotional honesty before a God who well understands our sorrow.
The first thing this Psalm teaches us is simple but important to understand.
1) Christians Should Adjust Their Emotional Expectations
Verses 1-4: “A Song of Ascents. When the LORD restored the fortunes of
Commentators are not exactly sure what this incident references. It could be that this song of prayer is referring to the return of captivity from Babylon where God brought Israel back to Zion so that their lives were restored. Other commentators don’t believe that’s the case since it refers to the city Zion itself being in captivity and not part of her citizens who were removed.
Either way, we know that this is a song that has to do with turning sorrow and captivity into great joy. It may be that their sorrow is self-inflicted, in that they have sinned against God and therefore God is disciplining them, or it could mean that this is a temporary military loss where an enemy came and took the city captive.
Whatever the reason, their sin or just the enemy hating their existence, the experience was tears.
And isn’t that the experience of our own lives? Sometimes we have brought sorrow and weeping upon ourselves because of our actions, because of our sin, and we weep bitterly because of both the consequences of our sin as well as the awareness that we are to blame.
And other times it isn’t our sin or foolishness that brings our souls to despair. It might be the actions or words of another. It might be what feels like an attack from enemy who wants to come and besiege our hearts to take them captive. The hurt of a friend who betrays you, the gossip from someone you trust, the loss of someone you thought loved you.
There are numerous reasons why we are brought to tears from the pain inflicted by another and not due to our sin.
The first thing we need to understand is that even if we are a child of God, even if God is in your life and you are walking with Him, you should expect tears. In fact, we should expect many, many tears.
But there is dirty little secret that Christians won’t let out; a myth that we have come to believe but don’t want to admit to one another: We think that if we’re a Christian, if we’re good, if don’t do anything wrong, that God won’t really let bad things happen to us.
But when we look at the Psalmist’s prayer, we don’t see any inclination of repentance or wrong doing. We’re not sure, but it doesn’t seem as if they are admitting the wrong they’ve done and are therefore asking God to restore their fortunes because they’ve repented of their sins. It may be the reason, but may not.
This is important because we need to realize that this kind of karma gospel is a serious error and doesn’t help us in our times of tears. To think that because we’re a child of God we won’t experience any suffering or broken hearts and tears is simply a lie.
In fact, I think a stronger case can be made that the more you begin to grow as a child of God, the more closely your heart is bound to Jesus, the more you’re going to shed tears.
If you’re experiencing sorrow and tears, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s because you’ve failed God, you’re not praying enough, you’re not reading enough, you’re not this or that. I think that growing closer to God will actually make you weep more.
Why? Well, we see in Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 that God promises when His salvation comes He will remove a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. Do you know what this means? It means instead of your heart being hard and unbreakable like a stone it will become tender, soft, vulnerable, and subject to being hurt.
I know I use this quote often, but I do think it’s an amazing quote by C.S. Lewis. And for the two of you here that haven’t heard it, I think it’s helpful:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
Listen, when the grace of God comes into your heart, when the Gospel begins to do its work, your heart will become more of a true heart. It will become more sensitive to the evil in your own heart and the evil, pain and sorrow in the world. It becomes more touchable so that as you give it away it will be “wrung and possibly broken” as Lewis says. Not because there is something wrong with it, but because there is something right with it.
Before the grace of God broke into your heart and began to make it into a heart of flesh, you looked down at other people, you would mock or scoff the homeless or the helpless, or even those who have done evil things. But when your heart of stone is removed, you begin to weep for others, weep for their circumstances, and even weep for their sin because you see that without grace you’re just like them.
Christians should not only expect tears, but they should expect to cry more and more.
If tears only come when you’re not walking right with God, then what do you do with Jesus’ tears? What do you do with the perfect God-man who came into this world and wept deeply?
There has never been anyone who has ever walked this earth with a more perfect emotional life or a more perfect heart. Yet we’re told that Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:6).
Jesus did not waste a tear. Yet when we look at him weeping over Lazarus’ tomb we’re tempted to say, “Why all the weeping over your friend, you knew you were going to raise him from the dead?” Why would Jesus spend himself emotionally when all he had to do next was call out Lazarus’ name and he would have risen? Because Jesus had a perfect heart, and to have this kind of heart means that you’re familiar with sorrow and loss and can respond appropriately to it.
Don’t you see how silly it is to ask God to make you more like Jesus and yet also believe that if you’re like Jesus you’ll be kept from tears? Do you think if you’re right with God nothing bad will happen to you? Well, Jesus walked right with God and yet he experienced great suffering and pain, and he shed many, many tears before His Father.
So, as you grow in grace, expect tears. Don’t run from them, don’t hide them, instead realize that it is a work of grace that your heart is no longer a heart of stone.
Also, we not only need to expect tears as Christians, we need to sow them.
2) Christians Should Plant Their Tears
Verses 5-6: “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6 He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”
What is the Psalmist trying to teach us here by way of poetry? This is a beautiful way of teaching us what to do with our tears when they come.
We all know that farmers go out into the fields to plant seeds into the ground and then, months later come back with the fruits of their investment.
We’re being called to see our tears as an opportunity to invest in our joy. Tears are an invitation to believe and hope in the one who will make the seed grow into a joyful harvest.
Don’t you see that tears are the longing of our soul for what is right? Our cries are cries of awareness that something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
But, the difference between invested tears and wasted tears is found it what we believe. We can either shed tears without hope and therefore waste them, or we can shed tears with hope and therefore invest them into our future joy. Either way we’ll shed tears. The question is whether or not you want to waste them with unbelief or invest them into your joy.
The world can not rejoice in sorrow. They have no hope beyond their circumstances. So, they try to either stuff down their emotions by bottling up their pain, or they try to live their lives avoiding pain and suffering.
This is the wisdom of the world; vent your feelings and emotions and you’ll feel better. Have you ever had a friend tell you “You just need a good cry?” Really? Is that what you need? What happens when you’re done crying? The pain is still there, the situation hasn’t changed.
Some psychology teaches that venting your emotions is what will help you. But the truth is that you’ll be just as hopeless, just as miserable, and just as helpless if your emotions become your savior. Our emotions, by themselves, can not bring us hope and joy. We have to place our faith and hope in something greater than our circumstance in order to rejoice.
This is why the Gospel way is so stunning and different. It says that we can experience great sorrow and suffering and yet still rejoice in hope! We can weep but we know it’s not wasted because we know our sorrow will one day not only cease, but be turned to joy.
We’re told twice in Revelation what will one day happen with our tears of sorrow:
Revelation 7:17: “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Revelation 21:4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
This truth helps us to plant our tears, sow them, and invest them into the future. And as we live out of that future hope, we are transformed in the moment.
This is how Paul could say:
2 Corinthians 6:7-10: “by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing…”
Paul could claim to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. This sounds so strange to our ears.
If you plant your tears, they produce joy. They produce a future joy, a future glory that helps us to weep well today. Listen to how Paul puts it:
2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
Paul is saying that this pain, these tears, this momentary affliction is producing an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. That’s what the world “preparing” means.
There are joys that come from avoiding tears, but don’t really change you. And there are joys that come from shedding tears that radically change you.
So, we not only should expect tears, we should invest them, and when we invest our tears and find joy in our God, the world will take notice.
3) Rejoicing Tears are Missional Tears
Verses 2-3: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’”
As our tears are turned into hope and joy in what our God promises us, the world will watch our hope and say, “Your God has done great things for you.”
1 Peter 3:14-16: “But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; 16 yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”
What Peter says here is that when we suffer in hope, people will ask us what the reason is, and we have an opportunity to respond by telling the hope that we have within us.
If we suffer well as a community, if we weep with joy, if we invest our tears and are transformed by them in hope, the world will wonder why.
And when the world asks, we can tell them why our God is able to give us hope, why our God understands.
Let’s read Psalms 39:12-13.
Psalms 39:12-13: “Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers. 13 Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!”
Our God understands our tears, understands our pain, and understands what it feels like to cry out in agony.
Jesus received our rejection. Jesus experienced the pain of loss. Jesus experienced the sorrow and alienation our sins deserved.
Matthew 26:38: “Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’”
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