WEEPING WITH WEEPERS

“—–weep with them that weep.”–Romans 12:15   The prayer recorded in Psalm 56:8 indicates that God collects the tears of the saints and puts them in a bottle. Isn’t that amazing? To think that our tears are treasured and cherished by God is a great comfort. It is also a challenge. If we are to be like God we must “weep with them that weep.” Do we?   I read that during the Civil war, wives and mothers put their tears in little bottles, called “tear vials”, and sent them to their husbands and sons. Just imagine a soldier on the battlefield holding one of these in his hands and looking at the very tears that had been shed for him. This evidence that someone cared would be a great encouragement. Even so, as Christians we have an obligation to express our concern for others.People need to know that we care.   Pastor David Dykes relates this interesting bit of information: “—in the temple in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus they had an unusal custom—They made everybody walk in one door and out the other door—the worshipers would all enter the temple mount from the south, going up the steps of Solomon’s portico, Then they would do their business up on the temple mount and they would all exit usually out of the norhteastern corner. There was one exception—whenever there was a Jewish family in Jerusalem who had gone through a genuine time of heartache and sorrow, that family was allowed to walk totally against the flow of the people traffic. They would enter where everybody else was exiting and they would exit where everybody else was entering. You know why they did that? So that all the worshipers were forced to confront the faces of people who were hurting so they wouldn’t miss their pain.”   We can learn something from that custom! We need to consider the pain that others are experiencing and express our sympathy for them. People need to know that we care and when we do it shows. As I have said so often—Those who care do!