HOW MANY TEARS CAN A BOTTLE HOLD?

Today has been a real emotional day! Crying a lot. Which prompted me to do a Google search on "How many tears can a bottle hold?" This article has touched me so deeply at a pivotal time in my life. I hope you will be touched as well:

"You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?" Psalm 56:8

HOW MANY TEARS CAN A BOTTLE HOLD? “Put thou my tears into thy bottle,” you read, and mentally we begin to see the bottom fill and then the volume rise. How many tears will it hold? The answer depends on several things. How long have you cried? We’ve mentioned Job, he cried for at least seven days. When David’s child lay dying, he cried for at least seven days. Mary and Martha had cried for at least four days before Jesus came. Then I ask, How hard have you cried? Some years ago, we saw on the news a woman with dark glasses who sniffed and whimpered as she spoke into the television cameras, begging those who had abducted her two sons to bring them back to her. The FBI observed that for all her sniffling and whimpering, there were no tears rolling down her face. In a few short days, she confessed that she had driven the car into the lake, with her two little boys still sitting in the back seat, leaving them there to drown and to die.

Oh, but you say, my tears are real and I have cried for days. Then I ask, How big is the bottle? How should I know, it is only a figure of speech, or is it?

How big is the bottle? THE BOTTLE BELONGS TO GOD. The text says that they are my tears, but “thy bottle” and “thy book.” You do not see the bottle because it was made by Him, and it is kept by Him.

If this is so, and we know that it must be so, for God never lies, then the last and concluding thought that comes to our mind is that THE BOTTLE IS OUR TESTIMONY. It tells us first that God knows. Yes, prayer is a wonderful and a necessary thing, but it is necessary only for me. God already knows my life even before I tell him. It is necessary for my part that I tell him, when I tell him I get it off my chest and onto His. When I pray to Him and He answers, my faith is made stronger. But sometimes I forget to pray, yet He knows already, anyway. Jesus tells us that not a sparrow will fall to the ground and the Psalmist adds here that not a tear will drop from your eyes but that God will scoop it up, put it into a bottle, and keep it for his record.

“Jesus knows all about our struggle, He will guide ’til the day is done; There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus; no, not one; no, not one.”

He is keeping every tear and he can tell you why, when, and where it was shed. With such a God as this, we can only glory with admiration at his promise of resurrection. Think of all the people who have lived and died over the centuries. Their graves have long been invaded by worms and other creatures of nature. Feet, wagons, and then cars have leveled and then hid their very existence to the point that there is probably not a square foot of ground on this earth that has not once held the dead bones of some person. Yet at resurrection time, all the bones, all the tissue, all the parts of that body that was once buried will be called back and that same exact body that was buried will stand up and be recognized by many. What a mighty God we serve!

The bottle is our testimony. We have not lived in vain if we realize that there is a God so meticulous that he gathers our tears and keeps them in a bottle. Watch the level rise ever so slowly, today a few tears, tomorrow a few more, a year from now perhaps a great torrent--even as we pray that it will not happen. One of two things is then a sure certainty: the bottle will fill or the tears will end. Life never stays the same. Tomorrow will either be better or worse, joy or laughter. The Psalmist adds more to this thought of tears in yet another place of his writing, (Ps.30:5) “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Job’s refusal to curse God and die is a testimony that has strengthened millions. And we must surely never forget that “Jesus wept.” He cares, He can do something to help us, to dry our tears. He can turn our inconsolable grief into indescribable joy. He alone can do it. Have you trusted my Jesus? He longs to save you now. Will you bow your head and ask him to do it? I pray that you will. Amen.

by Larry Parker

So, however long you cry on this earth, God will always have a big enough bottle to hold your tears.