KEEPING GOD COMPANY
Christine Wyrtzen
My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. Psalm 119:136
It’s hard to know whether David is crying for the people who break God’s law or for God’s broken heart as He watches people break His law. The first reason is more often considered. We know firsthand the pain of watching others reject God, live on the edge of an abyss, and eventually shipwreck. We see those we love perish languish without the Word and every part of them grows more sickly. They hear the truth but reject the One who would bring God’s shalom to their brokenness.
But what about God? Have I given any thought to how He feels watching His children reject Him? He doesn’t behold our ways with a casual attitude of indifference. God is the engaging, heartbroken Father who watches sin destroy the ones He loves. We often reject the paths He designed for us and miss out on the very reasons He created us in the first place. We waste our lives given by a Creator who thought of us before we were even a microscopic being in our mother’s womb.
Perhaps David sits with God and weeps with Him over the ways He is being hurt. Just as we knock on the door of someone we love to grieve with them over a crippling loss, David visits God. On Good Friday, as God remembers what it was like to watch His Son die, how many will remember with Him and share His grief? As God watches the world He made slowly erode and groan for His redemption, how many feel His pain of beauty being destroyed? As God watches the church of this age mingle their affections with the stuff of Babylon, how many will tearfully repent on their behalf and soothe the ragged edges of God’s heart?
God is touched when we are emotionally invested in His heart. Because of His desire for our fellowship, He’s chosen to be affected by whether or not I bend my heart in his direction or withhold it. Bendetti, the 13th-century hymn-writer of the Stabat Mater, was one day found weeping in public. When asked the reason for his tears, he said… “I weep because Love goes about unloved.”
I sit with You on Good Friday, remembering Your journey with Your Son. I’m sorry people rejected Your gift of Love. Amen
For more from Christine Wyrtzen and Jaime Wyrtzen Lauze, please visit www.daughtersofpromise.org
Originally published Monday, 15 February 2021.
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