Pay Attention to the Tears

I came across a devotional about a very young and way too busy executive named Lucas who was traveling down a Chicago neighborhood street. He was driving too fast in his new, sleek, black 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE. He was watching for kids who might run out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As he drove past, no child appeared, but suddenly, a brick came flying out of nowhere and hit the car’s side door with a loud thud. He slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse, and spun the Jaguar back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. Lucas jumped out of the car and shouted at the kid, “What’s your problem! Why on earth did you do that?”

“I’m sorry!” the boy yelled back, “but I didn’t know what else to do!”

“Didn’t know what else to do?” Lucas furiously replied as the shouting match continued.

“I threw the brick because no one else would stop,” he said, pointing past another parked car. “It’s my brother. He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair, and I couldn’t lift him up. Can you please help me?”

Moved beyond words, the very young and way too busy executive helped lift the young boy back into his wheelchair. He then watched the younger brother push him down the sidewalk and off on their way. It was a long walk back to the sleek, black, shining, 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE –a long and sobering walk. Lucas never fixed the side door of his Jaguar. He kept the dent as a reminder not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick to get his attention.

Tears should grab our attention as much as flying bricks out of nowhere. Like blinking lights on your vehicle’s dashboard, the Lord lined the windows into our souls with tear ducts to indicate something pressing needs attention.

If love is “when one person cries, the other tastes salt,” then our Savior indeed loves us. I’m confident we’re never closer to our Lord than when we weep. If Psalm 56:8 says of Him, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book,” it’s not a stretch to think He can also taste salt.

I came across a devotional that asks, “Have you ever wondered why a pigeon walks so funny?” It’s so it can see where it’s going. A pigeon’s eyes can’t focus as it moves, so the bird has to bring its head to a complete stop between steps to refocus. It proceeds clumsily—head forward, stop, head back, stop. In our spiritual walk with the Lord, we have the same problem as the pigeon: we have difficulty seeing while on the go. We need to stop between steps—to pause and refocus on God’s word and will. Certainly, our walk with the Lord needs to have built into it a pattern of stops that enable us to see more clearly before proceeding. Could tears signify you better slow down, like the executive, or stop, like a pigeon, before moving on? The Bible is emphatic on this point: “Cease striving and know that He is God.”

Pay Attention to Other’s Tears

And if you really want to look a lot like our Messiah this week, be on the alert for others who weep or are on the verge of crying. I promise they’re there. Don’t determine it’s not your business. It is.

We’ve lost the art of tenderness, haven’t we? Especially when it comes to strangers. Consider Jesus’s interactions with relative unknowns: A lonesome lady at a well with a scandalous reputation, a treasonist traitor manning a Roman tax booth, a woman broken down by her infirmity and bankrupted. It’s as if their hurts, pains, and sorrows became magnetic fields, drawing Christ in closer. Every encounter ended poignantly, all because He was tender. All because He cared. All because He paused.

Lastly, far from brushing crying aside, the old Puritans prayed for tears, “the gift of tears” as they saw them; that was what they requested from God. Like a dent in a car door, blinking lights on a dash, or goofy walking pigeons, pay very close attention to the tears.

Jesus said, for those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

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By George Shamblin Book News, Family & Friends, Uncategorized 0 Comments