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The Laboratory of Tears . . .
,
The metaphor of tears in a bottle derives from the ancient Eastern
practice whereby mourners saved their tears in a bottle, in memory of the dead.
As the sufferer wept and the tears rolled down the cheeks, they were collected
into the bottle and kept in memory of that tribulation. Each time one looked at
that bottle, it became a reminder. Nobody can fully interpret tears - tears
have a language of their own that is universal. Every human being speaks the
language of tears. Whatever strange native language somebody speaks, when they
cry, we seem to understand the common language of pain or joy that their tears
express.
For the Broken
Hearted
1. The
laboratory of Tears
Ten days
ago, if I knew what I am about to share with you, I would not have had the
regrets that haunted me from then, nor the inexplicable lingering burden from
which I could not weave free.
It is
with sorrow therefore that I share with you this message on the prayer of
tears, as I have learned it from the Lord.
I shall
tell the rest of my story in later lines.
Sometime
ago, I got puzzled by something I read in the Psalms, to the effect that God
has a bottle, or bottles, in which He stores the tears of His people.
I wondered to myself, “What does God do with the tears in His
bottles? Is there a library or laboratory in heaven, with our tears in beakers
and cylinders?”
It
occurred to me that each teardrop is a microchip of those unspeakable emotions
that generated the tear; that each teardrop is a coded material summation of
the intangible and inarticulable turmoils that compelled it.
I suppose
that each time God picks up those bottles in His prayer laboratory, He reads
the ripples of pain in them; He hears from them the echoes of those prayers,
those pains, those aspirations that the crying person was unable to put into
words.
He
decodes from them those requests and emotions expressible only in the language
of tears, like the prayer language of the Holy Spirit, according to Romans
8:26-27.
Bible
scholars tell us that the metaphor of tears in a bottle derives from the
ancient Eastern practice whereby mourners saved their tears in a bottle, in
memory of the dead.
At other
times, if someone was sick, afflicted, or in great distress, their friends
often visited them with a tear bottle, called a lachrymator.
As the
sufferer wept and the tears rolled down the cheeks, they were collected into
the bottle and kept in memory of that tribulation.
Each time
one looked at that bottle, it became a reminder. Such ornate bottles decorated
homes in Egypt and in Rome.
“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle:
are they not in thy book?” (Psalm 56:8).
2. The
language of Tears
Nobody
can fully interpret tears, even as no one can perfectly translate any one
language into another. The specialists tell us so.
However,
tears have a language of their own that is universal. Every human being speaks
the language of tears.
Whatever
strange native language somebody speaks, when they cry, we seem to understand
the common language of pain or joy that their tears express.
I do not
speak Japanese, but when I see the Japanese woman weeping for her 2-year old
son crushed in an earthquake, I understand that she is not celebrating a
lottery of a million yens that she has won.
When I
see the Korean grandfather weeping for a baby shot dead by a crazy gunman, I
understand that he is not celebrating a birthday.
He is
speaking in a language too deep for words; a language best understood only by
God; a language analogous to the prayer language of the Holy Spirit, according
to Romans 8:26-27:
“26 At the same time the
Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don't know how to pray for
what we need. But the Spirit intercedes...with our groans that cannot be
expressed in words.
“27 The one who searches our
hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind. The Spirit intercedes for God's
people the way God wants him to” (Romans 8:26-27, GOD'S
WORD).
The New
American Standard Bible describes this prayer as “groanings too deep for
words.”
According
to the New International Version, it is “groans that words cannot express.”
I think
it makes sense to me, otherwise tell me, what is the meaning of the repeated
cry of “Ahhhh!” that comes from the young woman in Jos who has lost a husband
to Islamic jihadists after only six months of a pleasant marriage?
How does
one interpret the moans of “Ooo! Mnnn! Ehhh!” from a pastor in the northern
Nigeria city of Bauchi whose church has been burnt down by Muslims, with his
wife, four children, and fifteen members in it?
Only the
Creator who puts our tears in His bottle can fully tell what such groans mean.
Only in
God's lachrymal laboratory can those wordless wails and tears be fully analyzed
and interpreted.
Could this
New Testament prayer mystery of inexplicable groans be what the Old Testament
Psalmist describes by the metaphor of tears in a bottle? Perhaps.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer, remarks knowingly in
The Little Prince, “It is such a secret place, the land of tears.”
3. The
logbook of Tears
God not
only has a bottle for tears, He also keeps a logbook for the tears; a logbook
recording who wept what tears, when, why, on account of what or whom.
“… My tears… are they not in thy book?” Malachi
calls that logbook the “book of remembrance:
”… the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was
written before Him for those who fear the LORD, And who meditate on His name” (Malachi
3:16, NKJV).
Do tears
mean so much to God, that He should take such pains to document and catalogue
and preserve them?
Yes. With
God, there are no wasted tears.
John Webster the English playwright says in The White Devil, “There's
nothing sooner dry than women's tears.”
That may
be true about some tears, but not all.
Tears
shed before the Lord do not “sooner dry.”
Hannah's
tears did not. They gave her a son and still stand recorded in the greatest
ever book, the Holy Bible.
Every
tear is documented, in His book; and the day comes, probably not as soon as one
expects, when He shall read the book and reply to the tears (Luke
18:1-7; Esther 6:1-11).
For example, after about 400 years of exile in Egypt, God appeared
to Moses and said to him about the slaving Israelites, “I have surely seen
the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry… And I
am come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7-8).
God was
recalling tears.
4. The
Weapon of Tears
Not only
does God save tears; not only does He record and read them; the next verse
tells us something even more strange, that tears are a weapon:
“When I cry unto thee, THEN shall mine enemies turn back: this I
know; for God is for me” (Psalm 56:9).
Some
enemies may never be turned back except by the prayer of tears.
Some
enemies may never be overcome until we are at the place of tears.
However,
not every tear wins the war. The passage makes that clear.
It speaks
of tears “unto” God, not those shed in pity for ourselves or as a means
of manipulating a husband or a mother or anybody.
It says, “When
I cry unto thee....”
Some
tears, though profuse, have been futile, because they were not “unto”
God (Hebrews 5:7; 1 Samuel 1:10).
Learn to
turn your tears to God, then wait and watch what He will do.
As
anointed a prophet as Jeremiah was, he learned to use the instrument of tears
so much that it got into his title: The Weeping Prophet.
His
second book, Lamentations, says it both in the title and in the content.
“Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is
poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people...” (Lamentations
2:11).
Jesus
Himself also wept, publicly, at least on three recorded occasions:
o
at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35),
o
over the blind city of Jerusalem that, oblivious of its glorious
season of divine visitation, was heading for imminent trouble (Luke
19:41-44), and probably
o
in the Garden of Gethsemane, in His high priestly capacity, as
told in Hebrews 5:6-8:
“6 As he saith also in
another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
“7 Who in the days of his
flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and
tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he
feared;
“8 Though he were a Son, yet
learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews
5:6-8).
Talking
with a friend three days ago as we studied the book of Hebrews in preparation
for a retreat, he read this passage to me, stressing that even Jesus the Son of
God wept.
It
touched me deeply, especially (I told him) as it reminded me of my failure of
tears only a few days before. (I shall tell the story in later lines.)
He proceeded to show that even “the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22), and added
that such was also Paul's prayer life: “My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians
4:19).
Once upon
a time, trouble was coming upon Jerusalem.
The enemy
had planned to litter the streets with the corpses of young people, which was
going to make mothers to cry.
God thus
advised the Weeping Prophet himself on what to do.
He was to
confront the coming plot with the weapon of tears, yet not his male prophetic
tears but those of women who needed to weep in prayers then, so as not to weep
in sorrow later for their children slain.
“17 Thus saith the LORD of
hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come...
“18 And let them make haste,
and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our
eyelids gush out with waters.
“19 For a voice of wailing is
heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! ...
“20 Yet hear the word of the
LORD, O ye women... teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour
lamentation.
“21 For death is come up into
our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from
without, and the young men from the streets” (Jeremiah
9:17-21).
In The Living Bible, we read, “The Lord Almighty says: ‘Send
for the mourners! Quick! Begin your crying! Let the tears flow from your eyes’”
(Jeremiah 9:17-18).
What is
there in tears that even God has to recommend them to the prophet Jeremiah, as
a means of saving his land?
Only He
knows.
5. The
Force of Tear
Not only
have feeble tears won battles, they have also wrought deliverance.
In other
words, they have not only defeated enemies, they have also broken the chains of
captivity.
We see it
hinted at in God's point of view on how the deliverance of the Israelites came
about:
“7 And the LORD said, I have
surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard
their cry (from which tears I decode that the cry is] by reason of their
taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
“8 And I am come down to
deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that
land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey….
“9 Now therefore, behold,
the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen
[through the tears analyzed in my laboratory] the oppression wherewith the
Egyptians oppress them.
“10 Come now therefore, and I
will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the
children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:7-10).
Some salvation will come only through tears, for, according to
Psalm 145:19, “... He also will hear their cry and save them” (NKJV).
Of Hannah
the mother of the prophet Samuel, we read in 1 Samuel 1:6-10,
“6 And her adversary also
provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.
“7 ... so she provoked her;
therefore she wept, and did not eat.
“8 Then said Elkanah her
husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou?
“10 And she
was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.”
As she
spoke to God in that language of tears, expressing her pains too deep for
words, Eli the high priest, not sufficiently familiar with all the ways of God,
interrupted her, confronting her with the theological and denominational
inappropriateness of her mode of tearful speechless prayers.
He
misinterpreted it as demonic drunkeness; but this was her reply,
“15 … No, my lord, I am a
woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but
have poured out my soul before the LORD.”
Only then
did Eli's eyes open to say,
“17 … Go in
peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of
him.”
What we read thereafter is her testimony: “and the LORD
remembered her” (verse 19) and “Hannah... bare a son, and called his name Samuel” (verse 20).
That was
her last barren year; those were her last memorable tears.
She broke
through with tears, even when her pastor could not understand. It also was the
last we read anything of her adversary's merciless provocations.
“… When he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious” (Exodus
22:27, NKJV).
6. The
Therapy of Tears
Besides
their spiritual potentials, tears also have other natural therapeutic benefits.
Even
psychologists acknowledge that they heal their minds who let them flow.
Alice
Walker the American poet and writer, in Her Blue Body Everything We Know,
writes: “Tears left unshed / turn to poison / in the ducts.”
As British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher also confessed in an
interview with Woman's World (London), “There are a few times when I get
home at night and everything has got on top of me when I shed a few tears,
silently, alone.”
Even
prime ministers cry.
7. The
Empty Bottle of Tears
Now my
story. Fifteen days ago, I had been scheduled to speak at an annual national
women's convention.
I had had
a session with them the previous day.
While I
prepared to leave for the meeting that day, I visited one of our offices
briefly, and met “breaking news” on the TV.
It said
that the United Nations office in Abuja, Nigeria, had been suicide bombed.
I froze.
“Islamic Jihad again,” I moaned within myself.
I left
for the meeting sad, burdened by the several vicious Islamic attempts at taking
Nigeria and the many other nations that they have often terrorized.
As I sat
and waited, the women made their elaborate introduction about the “great man of
God” that had come again to bless them, then they called me out to preach.
I trudged
out slowly to the lectern without my Bible, and announced that I was not happy.
Their faces suddenly took up an expression, as if to say, “What
have we done to make this man of God sad?”
I told
them that I was not going to stand to preach, but was going to sit on the floor
in my lamentation.
More
surprised, and meaning to be polite, they quickly offered me a chair, which I
also politely refused, and proceeded to sit on the floor, and began to tell
them of the “breaking news,” in the context of the current Islamic agenda to
take the country.
The house
broke into a spontaneous lamentation. I broke down in tears. For the next hour
and more, I could not preach their topic to them.
We simply
all sat on the floor and wept to God, having moved all the chairs and stacked
them by the walls, as we felt urged by the Spirit of God.
It was a
solemn atmosphere. Mothers, daughters, rich and poor, old and young, rural and
city women, we all were on the floor in tears to God.
Five days
later, which was ten days ago, I was at another great prayer function of about
two thousand women who had come from different churches.
I shared
with them my burden, telling what had happened five days earlier. I broke down
again in tears, but this time, I resisted the tears.
I put my
tearful head down on the lectern, put the microphone away from my sobbing lips,
and wept silently and controllably.
The
atmosphere suddenly had become electric with the power and presence of God.
A few
women had dropped to the floor at the burdens that I had shared, and were
already lamenting, but I managed to cut it short after a few minutes and wiped
my eyes, so I could go on with my preaching.
A few
more times during the preaching, I nearly broke down again in tears, but I kept
managing my emotions.
During
the meeting and after, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had not done
right by restraining the spontaneous move into a prayer of tears, simply
because I meant to go ahead with my preaching.
The
meeting went well, and everyone thought that it was a great visitation, but I
carried a burden and a guilt I could not explain. It has followed me for days.
Only now
have I begun to realize that I denied that great congregation the opportunity
of an inspired prayer of tears, and that the angels may have gone back with an
empty bottle.
Perhaps
God had already opened His logbook to record the tears and the pains of His
people.
Perhaps
there were enemies that He was about to turn back that day from us as
individuals and as a nation, but my male and intellectual head got in the way
of the Spirit's visible move.
Perhaps
some tear bottles now stand empty in God's prayer lab, on account of my failure
that day. I regret it.
I wish I
knew these truths before that day, perhaps we would have raised strategic
lamentations that could have added to the missiles for dealing with the
encroachments of Islamic darkness that now top the prayer concern of the Church
of my age.
Yesterday
at a prayer retreat of The Preacher, I made my confessions of this failure.
I told
them I wished I knew better, ten days ago. We went on to pray.
Today, as
we worshipped at that retreat, I saw a young woman, lost in His presence, with
the tears streaming down her cheeks.
She had
not been with us yesterday. I wondered that the angels might be taking her
tears into God's bottle.
The pastor of a large congregation wrote back to say, “It has
been some time now since I shed tears in prayers. Thank you for inviting me.”
From The
Preacher's diary,
Thank You
for Your True Love . . . Father God!
Goodbye for now . . .
For the Broken Hearted
http://www.forthebrokenhearted.net/152228726/6963266/posting/goodbye-for-now
You might
also like:
Tears Are A Language God Understands
Gordon Jensen
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HERE . . . to view complete playlist . . .
https://puricarechronicles.blogspot.com/2018/07/tears-are-language-god-understands.html
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