Semikkah7

05/27/2024 – “Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.” (Psalm 126:5)… “Every tear of ours that falls to the ground will grow the fruit of redemption.” / Post 4 of ? / (See 05/22/2024: “Jesus speaking on prayer” – six verses)

The excerpts here from the book are the 4th in a series. I would recommend going back and reading the 05/22/2024 post: “Jesus speaking on prayer – six Bible verses”. This posting is a continuation, a four paragraph excerpt , reference pages # 178 – 179:

“Prayer is asking, looking from the vantage point of heaven and pointing God into the mess. But prayer is also weeping — in the middle of the mess so thick we can’t see up, but can only scream through tears, ‘Lord, I can’t bear it any longer!’

The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 126:5, ‘ Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.’ Not only will God collect every tear, but he’ll redeem every tear. God is not merely bottling up our tears. He also promises that when they touch the earth, they will bring renewal. Every tear or ours that falls to the ground will grow the fruit of redemption. God bends history so that the moments of greatest pain become the moments of greatest redemption, twisting the story to be sure that the pain we feel releases the power of new life, and the tears we cry become the foundation of a better world. We are promised that a day is coming when the Father himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes. But until then, we live on an in-between promise. ‘ I will not let a single one of your tears be wasted.’ (insert: See Psalm 56: 8-13)

Our persistence in prayer comes from the promise that we don’t pray to a reluctant, half-interested, can’t-be-bothered judge, but to an unfathomably loving Father who collects our prayers like love letters and our tears like fine wine.

The final word Jesus speaks in the parable doesn’t come in the form of a promise but a challenge: ‘I tell you, [God} will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’ (See Luke 18:8). In the story, even Jesus admits that most people lose steam in the long journey of asking, seeking, and knocking. He promises a good ending, so good in fact that it’ll redeem not just the distorted creation as a whole but every moment of suffering from every individual life — none of it will have been wasted. But Jesus asks us, ‘When the time for that full and final redemption comes, will I find men and women of faith? Will I find any who haven’t lost heart along the way? Any who have trusted me and my promise enough to keep praying in the face of waiting and disappointment?’ Will he find us hollowed and flattened by our spiritual disappointment, or awake and hopeful even as we confront the unjust state of a darkened world? Will he find in us the persistent prayer of the widow who cried out day and night?

When we’ve grown impatient with the waiting, lost our stamina for persistence, what keeps us praying? We must recover an understanding of the way God is at work, not just in the final promise, but in all the acts of persistence along the way. “

So, once again: “Do we really believe what we say we believe is really true?”

Soli Deo Gloria!