This past week, I went for a short walk through a forested area that had just received a healthy dose of rain. The sky was grey and overcast, and though the air smelled fresh and clean, my wet surroundings left me feeling a bit sombre, if not reflective of those things in my life that cause tears to flow. We all have heavy-hearted days, and when the sun fails to shine and the sky isn’t blue with fluffy white clouds, it’s easy to feel sad and overwhelmed with our troubles.
As I walked about, I noticed water droplets sitting on every leaf from the rain that just recently ended, each little puddle a different size and shape, but all sitting there until the sun made an appearance and they dried up, or until I brushed by them with my hand and scattered the liquid every which way, which I most certainly did!
In your life and mine, when the tears roll down our cheeks, did you know that God looks at our tears with compassion and comforts us when we are sad, lonely, or just feeling without hope for tomorrow? Jesus is fully aware of our pain and sorrow, and He knows our afflictions and even counts our tears, the entire river of them. It’s true!
“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalms 56:8 (NLT)
Just imagine for a minute that you have a small bottle in your hands, its size not holding more than an ounce of water. Then try to calculate how many tears it would take to fill that bottle. You and I could cry for a week and still not gather enough tears to fill it. But God doesn’t miss one single tear, not now and not from the legion of other tears that we may have had in life.
I enjoy comparing Bible passages with other translations. Here’s Psalms 56:8 as written in the NIV Bible. The meaning is the same, but I love the change of words and take comfort in knowing that God allows not a single tear to go to waste. He sees us when we are on our knees, and when the carpet is wet from our tears: “Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll—are they not in your record?”
There is a Bible verse in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 17, that talks about the coming reign of Christ upon the earth. It reads this way from the NIV translation.
“For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
In context, this verse talks about the tribulation period and the tears shed by believers over the martyrdom of fellow believers and how Jesus will wipe every tear and there will be no more hunger or thirst or death. I still take comfort in the idea of Jesus seeing my tears today and wrapping me in His arms as His fingers wipe away my sadness. I can see the bottle of my tears in His hand and rejoice in my salvation through Jesus’s own tears and shed blood, death, and resurrection.
Next time you shed tears, look to Jesus. He’ll bottle them up and list them on His scroll.
Paul Smyth
