wow. this little comment feature can be so cool. encouragement can be so empowering. it's like those ducks that fly in an arrowhead formation. the ones that quack increase their drag quite substantially, and they have to increase their efforts to stay in formation. some have postulated, i'm told (i hope they were scientists), that the only function of the other ducks in formation to quack is to encourage the leader or "point duck," who is taking the brunt of the wind and drag. i wonder of that's true.
Anyway, Jeremiah was called "The Weeping Prophet." In Lamentations 3, we can get a practical glimpse as to why! Not only did he see affliction, but it seemed as if it came from God.
"He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long..."
That is some harsh perspective. Read on.
"Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer...
Like a bear l ying in wait, like a lion in hiding, He dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help..."
That some feeling of hopelessness. To top that off,
"I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long."
That's like a Top-40 song that's all about you and what a loser you are. Wow.
"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
'Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord..."
There was hope even in the midst of cumulated mishaps, tragedy, and just plain ole "bad luck."
We are reminded later on in this chapter of why Jeremiah was refered to as "The Weeping Prophet." It was because he cared about his people. He had compassion for his fellow countrymen.
"Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed. My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees."
I want to experience this kind of travail in prayer as I pray for others. Have you ever had someone weep over your condition in their prayer? Maybe it was a grandmother or parent. Maybe it was a friend who cared about you. When I hear Christians get on a rant about someone's behavior, it usually smells like they are sitting in judgment of them. "Can you believe so and so said this in an interview? He's supposed to be a Christian. It's obvious he's not..." Sometimes the "concern" is over a non-essential or just based on rumor or incomplete facts. Other times there are really situations that warrent sadness and grief. If we just took this adament energy to the Lord in prayer, letting Him break our hearts over a situation, I imagine the words of our mouth then (in prayer) would be much more effective in resolving the situation.
I don't think prayer is a formula, per se, but I honestly believe that God enjoys passion. We all believe that honesty in prayer is important, but some of us might be reluctant to think "God pays more attention to prayers if the person is crying." While I would stop short of saying that emphatically, I think there is some truth to it. When we are moved to tears by a broken heart, we are "pouring our heart out" in prayer. I think that must move God. Force Him to act the way we want? Not a chance. Make an impact on His heart? Quite possibly. You can't fake tears (at least not very easily), so what I'm talking about is authentic passion and care. I think this is good. I hope that I can be a more compassionate man. Even though I do not wish for calamity or bad things to happen to inspire such prayer, I hope that when things worthy of such grief happen, that I do pay attention and get moved.
Perhaps it is true that maybe "God created me to cry." Tear ducts are certainly part of God's wonderful creation of the human body. It wasn't a perversion of the devil. Satan had no part in crafting our being. So, it's pretty safe to assume that crying is the will of God. It comes down to context, though, I'm sure. Cause walking around weeping ALL of the time might be kind of counter-productive. But walking around and never ever crying might be counter-productive to our character building. It doesn't have to be in public, but it's probably healthy to cry every once in a while. I don't know.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at August 17, 2005 08:40 AMA while back you wrote about a memory from college of going to a "prayer room" at a Christian shop and just crying your eyes out. When I read that, I was so jealous. I hadn't cried in years at that point, and was praying for God to help me to trust Him enough to start again. Callousness is not His will, and if I was going to give Him everything I was going to have to give Him my defenses too. I knew I wanted the release, but when you talked about it, it sounded like it felt SO good, so appealing...it made me desire it.
A couple weeks ago at church I finally cried, God finally broke that wall and out came tears of joy that I could not contain. And you know what, it DID feel good. It was just a few tears, but it felt awesome. Then I came home and got some bad news, and cried sad tears for the rest of the day. And while life isn't about feelings and it feels horrible finding out someone you love has died, it was so much easier to go through it having that outlet and being able to cry and not just scream or shake or pace or hurl. And for whatever reason, the seemingly simple act of crying made it that much easier to release it to Him, to bring the hurt to Him and to resign to His will. Maybe it's a humility thing, I don't know. But it was good.
I don't know why I'm telling you this...I guess if hot water heaters need pressure release valves, so do we. Using fitting rooms for prayer stalls, by the way, is an awesome idea.
Posted by: KellyMichelle at August 18, 2005 05:43 PMthat is so awesome to hear!
i don't know you, but you shared something so personal and deep. that is rad. i'm jealous in the same way (not really jealous, but so happy) for you to have that set of experiences.
it's cool.
you're kind of like me in what you wrote, too.
and feel the need to explain what i'm talking about, like "of course, we don't live our life by feelings," and it's a shame we can't just say, "crying is wonderful" or whatever, but have to clarify (mostly because we've probably experienced people taking something we say the wrong way), but oh well, it's still a free expression, just a little instructional on the way.
very cool feedback. thanks.
Posted by: doug at August 20, 2005 08:43 PM