TEARS AS PRAYERS
And here, Brooks encourages us to bring our tears and hurts before the One who sits on the throne of grace. Looking at examples like David (as in Psalm 6:6-8) and Peter (Matt. 26:75), he writes, “prayers and tears are not only very pleasing to God, but also very prevalent with God.“
Bellarmine offered this commendation towards bringing one’s tears as prayers before God’s throne:
“Cry aloud, not with your tongue, but with your eyes; not with your words, but with your tears; for that is the prayer that makes the most forcible entry into the ears of the great God of heaven.”
Brooks reminds us that a discerning father can know the heart of his child if he listens to that child’s fervent tears. The sorrows of a child, whether right or wrong, or for good or ill reasons, are often accurate indicators of the state of the heart. And they tug on the heart of the loving parent. So, too, our loving Father ought to be the One to whom we bring our deepest sufferings and sorrows. When things are troublesome, as they so often are in this life as strangers and aliens to the world around us, it is then that we should look to our Father who knows and sees all things– even the things done in secret– and unburden ourselves before Him. View article…
