Meditations for Difficult Days - No. 11 - Transforming Sorrows into Hopes (Part a)
“Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”
From time to time, to help us unwind, my wife and I are watching a light-hearted "whodunnit" series on BBC iPlayer called Death in Paradise.
In the last episode we watched, the murderer, in his forties, killed a man who had bullied him way way way back at school. Decades had not erased either the memory or the hatred.
I know the story is made up, but just how do you cope with past sorrows in this "valley of tears"?
The Path of Bitterness
One way of dealing with disappointments, regrets and failures, is to stir them up in our hearts, bring them to mind and nurse them day by day.
This is the surest road to a heart of barren bitterness. Hell is hell partly because it's filled with an eternity of remembered regrets, remorseful musings and "if onlys."
The fictional chappy of Death in Paradise did not let the past go, but watered the memory of that childhood bully and let it bloom into the hatred which became father to the asasination.
I say "did not let the past go", but I should have said, "could not let the past go." Because no human effort, no human counselling or psychobabble can wipe the memory or cleanse the soul of bitter experiences.
But God can.
Another Path
Better ways of dealing with past sorrows are laid out for God's people in the Scriptures. Today we consider one, and tomorrow, God-willing, we'll consider another.
Take our wise little text above, written by the ever-joyful, ever-sorrowing David, who asks God to put his tears in a bottle. The next line fills out the meaning, as the next line often does in Hebrew poetry - "Are they not written in your book?"
"Lord bottle my tears" = "Lord remember them in your book."
At first sight this is an odd request! Why should David want God to bottle his sorrows and remember them in his Big Book? It sounds like David wants to hold on to them: should he not let them go?
Two keys unlock David's meaning.
"Lord, carry my burdens for me"
The first key is to notice in whose bottle David puts his tears. David does not say "I put tears into my bottle", no, he's asking God to put his tears into God's bottle.
David knows that his own bottle is small, it would soon be filled and he would find himself drowning in the flood. So he asks God to put his tears in God's own Big Big Bottle.
Surely, this is David's poetic way of saying what Peter will later say "cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you?" (1 Peter 5:17)
Get them off your chest, give your tears to God, let God carry your sorrows.
David knows that Almighty Omnipotent God can handle the tears of the whole world in his great big bottle - and though filled with compassion for each tear, yet not be overwhelmed.
But there's a second key to David's meaning. What is God's book?
A Coming Day
In Revelation 20:12, books are opened on the day of Judgement. Books are records of every event and deed both good and ill.
On the day of Judgement all wrongs will be put right, crooked ways straightened and dark things made plain.
So David is reminding himself that his sorrow has been recorded in God's book, ready to be put straight on that great and awesome day.
Mingled with all our sorrows, you see, is some wrong, some injustice.
For example:
How come my loved one died and their loved one lived?
Why did I get cancer but not he?
How come she found love in marriage, but not I?
Why did providence smile on her, but not on me?
Why did I get these parents rather than those parents?
How come I was bullied and not the other unusual kid in my school class?
Remembering that his tears have been recorded in God's book is another way of David saying, "I know that on the day of Judgement God will take those sorrows and put them right."
This is one of the greatest comforts of a Christian as we walk through an unjust world: one day God will sort out all the injustices of this world, including those that made us weep.
So we do not need to wear ourselves out with a thousand tortured whys, trying to fathom everything out, but leave our sorrows to God's infinitely wise future appraisals and judgements.
This putting our sorrows on the shelf for Judgement day, really does free us up from the past, it frees us from trying to unravel the balls of messed up wool.
Summing it all up
My choice of song today was written by Steve Curtis Chapman. It was written around 1990 - around 20 years before this happened to his precious little Maria. Are you ready? Are you sure?
"On May 21, 2008, 5-year-old Maria Sue Chapman was accidentally hit by Chapman's son, Will Franklin, after she ran into the path of his SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle, equivalent to our 4x4s) in their driveway. Maria later died at a Nashville hospital."
How do we deal with calamities like that? Words like "blame" and "if only" so easily come to mind.
This is what you do: put your tears in God's great big bottle and let him carry your burdens. Then you remember that everything that happened on that May day is written in God's book. And he will sort it all out on the last day.
Maria's dad, Steve, told a TV station that "faith was keeping his family going."
A faith that is still alive a decade after the accident, and a faith that some 20 years earlier was already writing the awesome words you will hear sung below.
A SONG FOR THE DAY
If I could only fly
I'd go up and look down from the sky
So I could see the bigger picture
And Lord if I could sit with You
At Your feet for an hour or two
I'm sure I'd ask too many questions
'Cause there's so much going on down here
That I must confess I just don't understand
But I have prayed
At Your feet my whole life has been laid
So I won't worry I won't be afraid
'Cause my soul is resting on Your higher ways
Let the road ahead become unclear
I am Yours so what have I to fear
If my soul is resting on Your higher ways
Your higher ways teach me to trust You
Your higher ways are not like mine
Your higher ways are the ways of the Father
Hiding His children in His love
So let it rain
And if my eyes grow dim with tears of pain
This hope I have will not be washed away
'Cause my soul is resting on Your higher ways
Someday I will fly
Maybe then you will take me aside
And show me the bigger picture
But until I'm with You
I'll be here with a heart that is true
And a soul that's resting on
Your higher ways
Phil Naish | Steven Curtis Chapman © 1990 Universal Music - Brentwood Benson Songs (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.)
You can hear it here:
A PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Dear Father in heaven,
Thank you for this day, and all the many blessings that crown our lives, even in the midst of Coronavirus.
We pray for the world, and especially your people in these strange days of uncertain foreboding.
Help us to put all our tears in your bottle and help us to remember that when Jesus Christ returns he will put all wrongs right.
Help us not try to fathom out our sorrows, but leave them to the Last Day, when God-man King Jesus will judge the world in perfect equity.
We look forward to his glorious return!
And ask these things in His Name,
Amen.
Pastor's Blog
This post is taken from our Pastor Roy Summers’ blog, where he discusses and comments on a wide range of current subjects and issues both in the world and in the church.