A Father's day post.

Jesus wept…and I do to.
By Stan Butler

As I stand among fellow brothers and sisters in Christ singing praises or praying to the Lord that I love, I often feel warm tears streaming down my cheeks as my voice becomes broken and I feel a deep ache in my chest, and at times I wonder, “Stan, why do you weep so much?” Why do you have to be so emotional? Why can’t you just be like most other men who pray from the heart,… but without tears? And then there are times when I have a fleeting thought “What must these people be thinking about a grown man who sheds tears almost every time He talks to or about his heavenly Father?”

I used to ask my heavenly Father to remove these tears from my prayers and from the songs of praise that I sing. I feel He’s answered that prayer. His answer was… that I am going to continue to cry and weep, and He is going to continue to bless me as I do. I found recorded in His Word (Psalms 56:8) “put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book.” To think that He keeps record of every time I shed a tear and my tears although I wipe them away… He has them stored in a bottle, His bottle, and they are written down in a book, His book.

I do know that I’m in good company,... that Jesus wept and He’s a man’s man. He is the manliest man that ever lived. I’ve learned that it was the great love Jesus had for Lazarus that caused Him to weep at his grave. It was a great love He felt for Jerusalem that made Him weep over a city. And it was His great love for you and I that caused Him to weep in the garden. It’s my love for God, my heavenly Father that causes me to weep as I speak to Him. I’ve read and my eyes have beheld how majestic, how powerful, how wonderful, how Holy my heavenly Father is, and it’s when I close my eyes to talk to Him, I’m overwhelmed at His awesomeness, His majesty, His Holiness, and my total insignificance, my smallness, my weakness, and yet, when I start to speak…He gives me His undivided attention. He is attentive to my every word.

It helps me to know there are others who have emotions they can’t control. It really does. Shedding tears doesn’t make one any less of a man nor does it make anyone any more spiritual than others. When we shed tears, I think God is washing our eyes so we can see. On this Father’s day, I’d like all the men to whom I send this out to, to pray this prayer with me.

Father, Please keep the tears coming… as I grow when I weep. Mostly I grow closer to you. It’s a closer walk with you that I yearn for; I pine for, so please wash my eyes with tears.

Father, wash my eyes with tears that I might see a world lost in darkness, and then give me a burden for those lost in that darkness.

Father, wash my eyes with tears that I can see the fullness of what Jesus did on the cross for me and then keep those tears flowing till I’m willing to share what I’ve seen with others.

Father, wash my eyes with tears that I can see the kind of husband, father, and grandfather you would have me be, and then help me to love my family as I should.

Father, wash my eyes with tears that as I read your Word, I’ll see your truth as I search for your knowledge, then help me to apply that truth and knowledge to my everyday life.

Father, wash my eyes with tears that I might always see Jesus as my Savior, my Redeemer, my Justifier, and my Friend.

And it’s in the precious, the wonderful and the Holy name of my Savior Jesus that I ask you to please do these things. Amen