The things that bring sorrow to your life are a pretty good indicator of what is most valuable to you. The things that create tears in us are often from the disturbance of one of the idols of our hearts. We need to ask ourselves what makes us cry? When did I cry last? If you haven’t cried a lot lately, you need to ask yourself why not?
When I was a kid, I would cry about things that affected me. Not getting what I think I deserved. I remember crying when kids bigger than me made fun of me. It was all centered around my discomfort more than anything else. I was young and at the center of my own universe. As I got older my tears changed somewhat I would cry when I received rebuke for my sin by my pastors and parents. I remember sitting in church at age 13 drawing a picture of a weird looking devil thing, and my youth pastor saw me he met with me and rebuked me I was a mess. I felt bad; I was beginning to feel to the sorrow that sin brings into the lives of everyone it touches.
I am thankful my parents didn’t shield me from the rebuke I deserved from my youth pastor. Parents let your kids cry. Make your kids cry. So often we rightly want to console them and pacify them that we fail to allow them to feel the weight of their sin and see the beauty of Christ.
Several weeks ago one of my kids made fun of another kid and said something hurtful. I told them they had to go to that person’s house and apologize. The whole family was eating dinner on the deck. My son said to me “Right now? Everyone is outside.” I said Yes right now go. My son came back broken and weeping. I told him “Do you feel good right now?” he said no. I said this is what sin does to you. Did you feel good about yourself when you were roasting that other kid? He said Yes. I told him that sin will always do this to you. If feels good for a moment but when you and those you love are faced with the reality of what sin does you will weep tears far bigger and feel the pain of that sin much deeper. I told him that this is what sin does it sells you short-term pleasure and shields you from the long-term pain it brings.
What makes you weep? Rebecca VanDoodewaard in this months Table Talk says this.
Have you ever noticed when old people cry? Not bitter old people, but elderly saints?
They don’t cry when they’re scared. They don’t cry about personal slights or disappointments. They rarely cry out of frustration. Instead, they tend to cry about two things: sin and its effects on others, and grace and its effects on others.
With sanctification, old age makes people’s souls strong and tender, not bitter and brittle. And the holier the saint, the more tender they are to sin and grace. Christlikeness makes them tender to the same things that Jesus is tender to. As we grow closer to the Lord, wisdom allows us to accurately identify “a time to weep” (Eccl. 3:4). Those are tears that honor the Lord even as they teach younger Christians about God’s economy: let’s weep for this broken world and God’s grace in it.
This is so true of all of us. One of the signs of the sanctifying work of God in our lives is our tears change. We become more like Christ because we no longer cry about our discomfort but we weep over our the sins of others. We weep at the effects of sin on our world and we weep as Christ is weeping over our own sin.
