Often we encounter tears, sometimes for understandable reasons when something sad happens but sometimes unexpectedly when a particularly happy event takes place. Over the years I’ve come to recognize tears as part of God’s way of refreshing our hearts and making room for healing and restoration. Of course, bitter tears can be shed, a kind of fist-shaking in God’s face – “Why did You let this happen to me” – as if we would be a better judge of how things should happen. This kind only diminishes a person and closes them off. However, tears that are shed for and with others are often Heaven-sent and cleansing. Scripture likens them to seeds being planted or irrigation coming to dry land, both promising times of blooming and fragrance.
Those who shed tears as they plant will shout for joy when they reap the harvest. The one who weeps as he walks along, carrying his bag of seed, will certainly come in with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves of grain. Psalm 126.5-6
I am about to do something new. It is beginning to happen even now. Don’t you see it coming? I am going to make a way for you to go through the desert. I will make streams of water in the dry and empty land. Isaiah 43:19
Are you experiencing emotions that release tears? Let them flow. God is at work within you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. You might enjoy a perennial favorite in daily devotional books that builds on this them: Streams in the Desert. Check it out if you have a chance.
