God Is Not Moved By Tears? 🤔

I keep hearing some preachers say God is not moved by our tears! 

And i ask myself, so the tears he gave us are for what exactly? 

To be used as expressions of joy only? 

Whenever I hear or read the statements, it irks my spirit, it makes me ponder on so many things that I have read in the bible and I try to put them into perspective to make sense of it all. 

On the contrary, my conclusion is that God is indeed moved by tears because he is the epitome of compassion and grace. But He is God and He can not be deceived, tears of drama are not what we are talking about but tears from a heart of worship, a heart of surrender and repentance or groaning in spirit when we bring our burdens before him and our hearts cry out for help and our tears simply reflects the state of our hearts. 

What father would see his son troubled to the point of shedding tears and would not care enough to want to ask; what is the matter my son? 

But He being the creator of the universe is a thousand steps ahead of our earthly fathers whose knowledge is limited. The Heavenly father knows the depths of every heart and intentions, so before you think it, He knows it. 

His word says in Mathew 7:11 says "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Jesus himself was moved with  so much compassion over the death of Lazarus that he wept in John 11:32-38.

Psalms 34:17-18 says the righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. Verse 18 says The Lord is night into them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. 

Samson Ajilore of WordOutreach in a published facebooks note on may 12, 2012 wrote

"It is true that God acts only in line with His Word and without faith it’s impossible to please God but pleasing God by faith is different from God sharing in our pains".

While researching on this topic on the internet, I also came across an interesting line of conversation in answer to the same question of God and our tears on https://christianchat.com/christian-singles-forum/is-god-moved-by-our-tears.65217/

A responder known as seoulsearch couldn't have captured it any better for me. Here is what she wrote. 

"I've heard as well that only faith, and nothing else moves the hand of God.

But I would have to disagree. 

Now it's true that when Jesus visited Nazareth, He "could not do many miracles because of their lack of faith" (Matt. 13:58).

Something that I find to be personally fascinating is God's PERSONALITY--who He really is. After all, we are made in His image and so our emotions are modeled after the very Maker of the Universe.

A few of my favorites passages on this subject are:

1. When God calls Moses, and explains to him, "I have observed the misery of My people in Egypt, and have HEARD THEM CRYING OUT because of their oppressors, and I know about their sufferings. I HAVE COME DOWN TO RESCUE THEM... The Israelites CRY FOR HELP has come to Me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them." (Exodus 3:7-9.)

I LOVE this whole story because God is basically saying, "I heard, and I went to go see for Myself, and now I am going to do something about it." 

2. When Hagar and Ishmael are sent away by Abraham, Hagar leaves Ishmael and walks away, saying, "I can't stay to watch him die." As she sat by, she "wept loudly". But Genesis 21:17 says, "God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar and said to her, 'What's wrong, Hagar? Don't be afraid, for God has heard the voice of your son crying from the place where he is. Get up, help and sustain him, for I will make him a great nation.'" 

3. Last but not least (I have more examples but didn't want to make this go on too long): JOHN 11:35 -- JESUS WEPT.

Jesus is God. If God Himself cries in human form... I am pretty sure that our tears move the hand of God. Now, someone might argue it was Jesus' faith and not His tears that moved God to raise Lazarus from the dead, but I have a tough time believing that God did not pay attention to BOTH.

The Israelites had been slaves for 400 years and the Egyptian's treatment of them became more and more brutal as time went on. The God they knew had supposedly been silent, or certainly hadn't been saying much, for this entire period, and 400 years is a very long time.

Hagar was a slave who had been impregnated by her master, most likely against her will, and she was presumably not even an Israelite, but interestingly, she knew who God was when He called to her.

My point is, during these times, I highly doubt that faith was at an all-time high here. Most likely these people were thinking, "Who is God? We haven't seen or heard from Him for centuries..." AND YET GOD HEARD... AND MOVED. The people totally rejected Moses as a leader but that didn't stop God from totally kicking Egyptian butt and leading His people through 40 years of travels to fulfill a promise He had made, DESPITE their repeated LACK of faith. Sometimes God moves just because He's God, not because of us or our faith or lack there of. "

I highly appreciated this responder and it just touched the core of what I needed🙏🙏. 

God bless. 

#knowledgeseeker

#knowledgehungry