A Bottle for Your Tears*
The picture of how much God cares about your suffering.
*Revised and re-posted.
8 You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 (NLT)
Notice there are three statements here:
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Art is effective because the images it impresses upon our minds are powerful at communicating deep realities that words alone cannot convey. The first and third statements in this Hebrew verse are awesome truths about how God keeps an account of all our sorrows and suffering. But the picture painted in the second statement depicts God collecting each of our tears in a bottle. That image sears into our mind the vivid reality of God’s compassion.
I may not be able to quote the chapter and verse in Psalms where it tells of God keeping my tears in a bottle, but the image and the truth told by that image have been with me for decades. Poetry is powerful like that.
In Hebrew poetry, if the writer wanted to emphasize something, they would repeat the idea but in different words. Maximum emphasis was achieved by repeating the idea three times. Obviously the writer of this Psalm wanted to put the strongest possible force to the idea that God cares about each and every tear we shed by saying it three different ways.
It is hard for us to imagine that God has the capacity to know every person’s thoughts and cares. Yet this verse casts the image of God seeing every tear we shed and catching each one in a bottle with our name on it!
No one else knows your sorrows the way God knows them. And no one else, not even your mother, is concerned about your heartache more than God.
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)
Previously, we saw how Joseph felt forgotten in prison for two years wondering if God had forgotten him as well(link). Joseph suffered at the hands of his brothers and in that Egyptian prison. But God had not forgotten Joseph. He had a plan at the perfect time to use Joseph in a way that even Joseph would never imagine in a million years.
And the Father who is collecting each of our tears will one day bring about a time for his children when tears and suffering are things of the past.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.
4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
Revelation 21:1–4 (NLT)
That will be a wonderful day for those who are trusting Him.