Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: March 16

" Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" ~ Psalm 56:8

We have purposely repeated the fact that there is no such thing as too much temptation to the sincere disciple of Jesus Christ. He is a deliverer out of all things. If we choose to be delivered. And here is the secret. Most of us plead with God to set us free, but we are really asking to be set free to "take the thing or leave it." We want to be able to do a bit of "social criticizing." As the alcoholic who prays for God to make him able to do a bit of "social drinking." We want to remain a part of a wrong relationship --- or at least retain our memories alive and tormenting. Broken human relationships, or radically changed human relationships, bring heartache only understood by those who have been broken in this way. Broken by new obedience to God or by death of the loved one. Either way, the heart breaks and the tears flow and the "couches" of our lives are "watered" by the torment of grief or darkness or aloneness seeming to spring from the very source of hell itself. The temptation may be to sink into self-pity or to make a telephone call and start it all over again. The temptation may be to buy a bottle or to curse God. No matter. He knows about it. Right here, as your heart cries for God to handle even your weeping --- right here is the moment for "choosing." "Jesus wept." He knows about weeping. And if we choose to give even our tears to Him, the miracle is under way. He will handle the timing of it. You may yield either to the temptation or to God. So may I [Eugenia Price, the author]. But we choose. By His power we can choose to recognize that this is no new thing, this weeping. God knew we would weep. Our tears are "in his book." We are in His hands. He has wept too. He is one with you in it. He knows.

"Who in the days of his flesh ... offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears ..."