Little Tears

Got all the heartaches I can use
From all the long nights I've been through
I'm only crying little tears
Not quite as big as they might appear

—Joy Lynne White

A storm was stirring in Jesus. "He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled." The center column reports that "he troubled himself." Before he would raise the dead he roused himself. Why? Because he now stood toe to toe with that last enemy, death.

Spurgeon says the hardest thing in winning souls is to get ourselves into a fit state. I would say the same for preaching. Because until your own soul is moved you cannot move others.

Indignant at the power of the hour of darkness. Grieving with the family. Sorrowful at those who stood by in unbelief. Recognizing the full effects of sin. Our Lord's heart was in a great storm. But instead of a thunderous threat, or the lightning bolt of a curse, all that was perceptible was a shower of tears. Just two words make a verse unto themselves, John 11:35. He worked, he walked, he wearied, and "Jesus wept."

Jesus was always in touch with himself. Happy are those who are in touch with him. He held his divinity without doubt and his manhood without mistake. How did he keep it together? He wept.

The Puritans used to say that no prayer would prevail with God like liquid petitions. They trickle from the eye when distilled from the heart. The angel at the Jabbok will slip from Jacob's grasp. But moisten your hands with tears and you will hold him. Why take Prozac? Let your soul arouse itself, and trouble itself to anguish to prevail. Jesus taught us how to baptize our prayers.

How did Jesus keep sin out of his crying? By weeping in the Father's presence. He spoke to God in his sorrow and the first word was, Father (v 41). But that's not all. It was, "Father, I thank thee . . .".

If you can weep in a way that, all the while, you sense God is your Father and are thanking him, then your crying is healthy. When you cannot smile or weep without forgetting God and his word, you are sinning. (I just gave you the answer. Or if you prefer, we'll call it "The Secret" and you can send me $23.95.)

Consider this. Jesus did not prove his sympathy in words, or even his deeds. Only your heart can express true sympathy, and it does it by tears. They are mined from the depths of the heart, minted in the eyes, and put in circulation as precious (Ps 56:8).

Watch, or you'll miss it. Our Hero wept in the fight, but he was not defeated. He came, he wept, he conquered (apologies to Julius Caesar; I'm not sure how to say that in Latin).

You have an awfully small soul if you can hold it all in your ribcage. A Christ-like soul lives in the souls of other people’s bodies as well as its own (Rom 12:15). And indignation over being wronged will best show itself in compassion for the wrongdoer.

Then after you weep, go roll the stone away.

Dealing with Depression

Psa 102:1 A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.

A selfish person always finds it hard to get un-depressed. Even with medication. That's because all sources of happiness lie entirely in the circle of himself, so when he is sad all his resources run dry. A person who is unselfish has other wells to draw from besides those that lie in himself. Take out your purple pen and I'll tell you what to do.

• First, go to God. Through prayer, God is always there and always supplying solace to our sorrows.
• Second, there is comfort in God's word. How much do we miss because we are simply too lazy to search the scriptures for God's promises? (Uh-oh!)
• Third, there is encouragement in community. David was so depressed in Psalm 102 that he wrote verse 4.

Psa 102:4 My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

The worst kind of trouble is heart trouble, and it's the hardest to get out of. Nothing pleases us if our heart is unsettled, sad, and not right. So the only way David could comfort himself was in this thought:

Psa 102:13 Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come.

In other words, even though HE was depressed, the CHURCH was prospering. Even though he was depressed, someone else was getting saved. However low he got, at least Zion would arise! (Woo-hoo!) What does that mean?

Psa 102:15-16 So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.

Stop taking everything so personal, and viewing everything individually. Learn to satisfy yourself with God's gracious dealings toward the church and his people as a whole. The things that are dearest to Jesus, should they not be dear to you? Even though it is real dark right now, can you not rejoice in the triumphs of the cross and the preaching of the gospel?

Or have we forgotten about doing that? Did we forget that this is the only realistic option to faith, and will preserve us from falling into distrust? Don't let your sadness be compounded by selfishness. Look outward and look upward. Your own personal troubles are forgotten when you look—not only at what God has done and is doing—but at what he is yet willing to bring in answer to the prayer of faith.

Try this. Faith and focus. Focus on the right things by faith. Whenever you are sad in heart and heavy in spirit, forget yourself and your small, selfish concerns, and seek the glory of the cross. Seek it. When you bend your knee in prayer, do not limit it to the circumference of your own small life (sufferer though you are), but send a longing to God for more revival among his people. Then your own soul will be refreshed. Why? Because

Psa 102:17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.

Preach Your Way Out

Depression is the common malady of contemporary society. Even for Christians.

God is not unfair. First-century believers suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous physical persecution (study Foxe's Book of Martyrs). Many bled and died because of their faith, as did believers in Bible times. Read Heb 11:36-40.

God is just. So today we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous psychological issues. The emotional and the mental are our arenas of affliction. We face gladiators that are really "sadiators," and the lions of lying thoughts. Satan inserts ideas. We don't take them captive but embrace them. Before you know it, instead of sending them back where they came from, they come out of our mouth as our own. "Spinning" things to our own advantage, grieving the Spirit by using corrupt communication, bitter, angry because of our bitterness, wrathful because of our anger. Clamor and evil speaking spewing forth maliciously, we become gladiators against each other, wielding the sword of the tongue, defending ourselves with the shield of selfishness and insecurity (read Eph 4).

The best way I have found to handle being tee-nitchey is to preach my way out. For you, the remedy might come in any number of like medicines. Study your way out. Read your way out. Pray your way out.

You missed it, so let me explain. This was the idea behind the Psalms of Degrees (Pss 120-134). These were songs of ascent. Pilgrims would sing them to encourage themselves on the journey up to the temple for worship. They sang themselves out.

Since you don't believe me, you need to study the topography of ancient Mt. Zion. The temple was the most resplendent thing in the world. The gold would gleam, and the sun would reflect off the white marble. It was not just a light, but a beacon set on a hill.

Did I say hill? It was not that Mt. Moriah was all that high; it was that the valleys which surrounded it were so low. Even after thousands of years, all of Herod's temple work, and modern improvements, it is a pretty rough place to ascend on foot. Back in the day, it took quite an effort to get there. To remind them that the effort was worth it, pilgrims would give God some "layaway praise," putting their imagination for proper purposes (i.e. thinking about what it was like in the presence of God before they actually got there).

This is the cure for mental malady. It works for anger, depression, PMS. Try a dose of Pss 120-134. Don't take every four hours—take as often as necessary. Study and pray your way out so you can preach your way out. Get a vision across the valley.