Bible Passage: “Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me…Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.” (Jeremiah 8:21; Jeremiah 9:1 NIV)
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 8:13-9:3
Emotions are tricky.
Which ones are appropriate? How do we express them? In which circumstances, and over what?
As men, we are subject to widely varying and conflicting messages about our emotions. About what it means to be a man regarding our emotions.
Underneath all the movie messages, the fear of being perceived as weak—the truth of our God-given emotional makeup still exists. Our emotions, and even our understanding of them, have been broken by the sin that taints everything in our world.
Jeremiah, though, lays his emotions bare for all to see and read.
And the emotion is true, deep, and real, but they are not for himself.
Jeremiah weeps over the condition of Israel.
His emotional response is triggered by empathy for those around him. His pain is directly proportional to the plight of Israel; because they are crushed, he is crushed.
His pain is deep and sincere. He does not empathize from a distracted distance.
His empathy is born out of his view and knowledge of God. Jeremiah sees what God sees, and the sight of Israel in suffering leaves Jeremiah without enough tears to shed.
Men of God do not need to hide from emotions, even deep and visible expressions of them.
Jeremiah models for us the reality that emotion is a gift from God that has appropriate and necessary expression. Weeping is not a sign of weakness. It means we are clearly seeing what is happening in the world around us. We see what God sees and are moved by it.
Emotional numbness is not strength. It may be a symptom of distance and apathy. When we allow our God-given emotions to be stifled and shaped by the competing voices in the world around us, we risk disconnecting from God and losing the ability to see the world around us through His eyes.
Prayer: God, sometimes I do not know or understand my own emotions. I do not always want to face them or know how to give them appropriate expression. I know they are from You and a part of who I am. Help me to discover that knowing You frees me to be a complete man who weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice. Amen.
Reflection: What situations in your life or in our world would make you weep if you saw them through God’s eyes? Take some time to press into God today in prayer for that thing.
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