7-28-2025

Good Morning All,

         Psalm 56:8; “You have kept a record of my wanderings.  Put my tears in your bottle.  They are already in your book.”

    So, I guess it is confession time again.  I am one of them; I am a crier.  I cry at movies, sad stories, sad songs, at touching events.  My wife laughs at me; I don’t care.  I don’t actually cry at everything just those stories or movies that strike close to home; the ones that I can see myself being involved in.  It might be a show about a young child who suffers some great illness. It might be about a person who battles back from a severe and debilitating disease. It can be anything where I have related to a person who has experienced an event and I remember their pain as they suffered through it. I remember the raw emotion and it comes back and then it floods out.

    In our verse, David writes about his life and about ours.  First David writes of a “record of my wanderings.”  This was written at a time when David wasn’t king and was wandering in the enemy land of Gath.  For us, we are wandering as well and in an enemy land.  This world is still ruled by sin.  The devil has many deceived by his lies and distortions.  Those who believe the lies serve as the devil’s tools to assault us.  Add this to the devil’s own whispering into our ear and we are often wandering; lost in a world of darkness, lies, and attacks.  Yet we don’t battle them alone, God knows our wanderings and he gives us the hope to persevere and the faith to stand up to them. 

    While we are on this wandering, we know that we will face tears, real tears.  We will experience pain in this world, both believers and unbelievers will experience sadness and pain.  This is the result of sin both personal and world sin.  Other people’s sin affects you and me.  Think of the drunk driver who kills a van full of kids.  Tears will flow in that event.  Enough tears to fill a bottle and God keeps each one; he keeps each one as he wipes them from our eyes.  He keeps a record of them. He does this, not as a way to keep score but he keeps it in his heart as he feels our pain and loves us.  He has no desire to hurt us.  He has no desire to see us in pain; rather his desire is to love us and for us to be his children in his kingdom.  His desire is to wipe away the tears, the pain that we feel. And when God wipes away the tears, He wipes away the cause of the tears so we no longer feel the pain but our joy is restored. God kept those tears in order to wipe them clean. God’s love is upon us.  He knows our pain, our tears.  He watches our wanderings and offers us comfort and hope.

Dearest Father, in our wanderings we have tears and feel alone; yet you are always with us.  Give us the comfort of your Spirit and the consolation of your mercy.  Guide us in our wanderings and comfort us in our pain.  Be especially with those who are in need of an extra grace as their tears are falling now.  Use us as your hands and arms to bring comfort and consolation to their lives.  Give us your peace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret