A Time To #10

After a one week hiatus, we return to our A Time To Series and focus on weeping.  This is not a season that most will gravitate towards, but it is one that we all will endure.  Everyone will have weeping moments in life.  The question is not how to avoid them, but how to get the most out of your relationship with God in them

What is Weeping?

Basically, its sorrow in the moment. It can result from experiencing tragedies, losing loved ones, falling on hard times, having a child fall away from God, being diagnosed with an incurable disease and many other sad experiences in life.  No matter how great or small others perceive it, this experience is massive to you and it changes your life completely.  Weeping is the natural result. 

Jeremiah felt sorrow in the moment when Judah was turning from God again.  Here they had rediscovered God's word under Josiah (2 Kings 22:1-23:30) and two generations later they were right back where they had always been.  In his time as prophet over Judah, Jeremiah watched the leadership deny and turn away from God repeatedly and he watched as his people were conquered and led away into captivity.  This was a great time of weeping for Jeremiah, so much so that he wrote a book called Lamentations that details his sorrow. 

What do we do in times of weeping?

It's okay to feel sorrow, but ultimately we can't keep feeling sorry for ourselves.  Jeremiah, in the midst of his season of weeping was called to prophesy to the King of Judah multiple times.  Each time he prophesied, he was denied, ridiculed and shrugged off.  Even so, he kept prophesying.  Why?  It may be that he held out hope, as most of us do when tragedy strikes, that the King would change his mind at the last second.  We hope that when disease strikes that the doctors will make a new discovery in its treatment.  We hope that when our child is moving off from us and pursuing the world over God that he or she will have a last minute change of heart.  We hope that the financial crisis we have found ourselves in will be averted by a clerical error.  There are many things we hope for in our time of weeping, and that is okay.  However, that isn't what drove Jeremiah to prophesy.

Jeremiah prophesied in his time of weeping because God commanded him to do it.  Jeremiah could have made excuses or asked for a couple months or years while he got himself together.  After all, he was just a teenager when God called him to prophesy.  In fact, like most of us probably would, Jeremiah did try to resist (Jeremiah 1:6).  However, when God reassured him, Jeremiah took on the difficult task of addressing a corrupt nation. 

We may be facing a situation like Jeremiah in our lives.  It may feel like everything is falling a part all around us while the rest of the world moves on with its routine.  In these times of tragedy, we cannot quit, but we must embrace what God has for us to do in this life.  If our child is falling away from God, we were called to lead them to Christ so don't stop reaching for them even when they get mean or hateful.  In our or a loved one's time of ill health, don't shut up the doors of ministry God has provided us.  Keep teaching Bible Studies, witnessing to the lost and volunteering as our body allows.  Our finances might be crumbling, but we can't quit paying our tithes and giving of our resources.  If we will stay true to God, much like He did with Jeremiah, God will stay true to us.

No matter what you are weeping over right now, don't quit what God has given you to do.
Double down in your commitment to Christ and His calling for your life.
Bring the message of Christ through your ministry/calling to whoever will hear it.
Watch as God blesses you in your situation as a result of your commitment.