“My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your law.” Psalm 119.136
When you turn on the news and see all of the horror around you—when you consider society’s rapidly increasing decline into debauchery—what is your response?
The psalmist models the faithful response for us in this verse. He has lamented and prayed for deliverance from evil in the verses leading up to this one. Here, he weeps. He has seen the forsaking of God’s law, and it brings him to tears. God’s creation repeatedly rejects him, spurning his perfect counsel for life, and the psalmist weeps.
Is that your response? Is your instinct, when you see evil, to weep? Keep in mind that his sadness is not for his personal offense. He weeps because God has been offended. He weeps because humanity has sinned against God, not himself.
Oh that we would have such a love for God and his Word that we would weep when his law is rejected! May this despair cause us to eagerly tell others how they can escape the sin that ensnares them. May our love for God’s law cause us to weep for those who have violated it, and to tell them how they can be reconciled to God.
Gracious Lord, break our hearts for the sin we see around us, for how the world has rejected you. Give us a greater understanding of your holiness and a greater grief for those that fail to worship you in holiness. Teach us, O God, to grieve sin, that we might more earnestly proclaim Christ and the forgiveness of sin. Amen.