Trust God with your Tears

‘Hear my prayer, LORD, pay attention to my cry, and do not ignore my tears. I am an alien in your presence, a stranger just like my ancestors were.’ – Psalm 39:12

Trust God with your Tears

When life doesn’t seem too great, most of the time you keep your chin up anyway and carry on despite how you feel. Other days it gets the better of you and it seems the only option is to break down and cry.

Usually when just one or two things are on top of you, it is easy enough to cope with them. However, as a multitude of things start to stack up it only takes one final blow to topple the balance to knock you over the edge. Everything suddenly seems way too much to deal with and you end up in a state of despair.

Sometimes, just by thinking or chatting things through you realise that everything isn’t quite so bad after all. There may be a solution to alleviate the problem, or at least reduce it. However, often the main reason for something to deeply upset you is because you know, deep down, that there isn’t a solution.

It is often this realisation which causes us to cry.

This one unsolvable problem is quite possibly the trigger for all the other problems. Similarly to standing up a line of dominoes – as soon as the first domino falls so do all the others after it. What we had built has all fallen down all at once, leaving us confused and upset.

It is at this point that we realise we cannot solve the problem alone. We need help. We need help from someone who knows what we need more than we do ourselves. We need someone with powers beyond our own and those around us.

‘He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him…’ – Hebrews 5:7

Offer it to God. Hand it over. Tell Him why you are upset and that you don’t know what to do. Cry to Him, for God hears our cries and responds, as He has proved over and over again. Also, I’m sure it will be of some comfort just to speak to God about it.

I read a quote the other day which went along the lines: A problem shared is a problem halved, so tell it to Jesus twice! I loved this idea – it seemed so simple yet meaningful. We should speak to Jesus more often. He cried to God in His suffering to save us, so why are we so reluctant to cry to Him?

‘In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.’ – Psalm 18:6

Crying is okay. It means we know we need to stop and reassess where we are heading. God will listen, but only if we speak. God will help, but only if we cry out for it. For God loves us, and doesn’t want us to be upset.

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ – Revelation 21:4

Trust God with your tears, and just maybe things will get better.

***