Tears of Joy

Hello and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Sheridan Voisey and I've called our reading Tears of Joy. Leaving home one morning, Dean found some friends waiting with balloons.

His friend Josh stepped forward. "'We entered your poems in a competition,' he said, before handing Dean an envelope. Inside was a card that read, first prize, and soon everyone was crying tears of joy.

Dean's friends had done a beautiful thing, confirming his writing talent." Weeping for joy is a paradoxical experience. Tears are normally a response to pain, not joy, and joy is normally expressed with laughter, not tears. Italian psychologists have noted that tears of joy come at times of deep personal meaning, like when we feel deeply loved or achieve a major goal. This has led them to conclude that tears of joy are pointers to the meaning of our lives. I imagine tears of joy erupting everywhere Jesus went.

How could the parents of the man born blind not weep for joy when Jesus healed him, or Mary and Martha after he raised their brother from death? When God's people are brought into a restored world, tears of joy will stream down their faces, God says in Jeremiah 31, and I will lead them home with great care. If tears of joy show us the meaning of our lives, imagine that great day to come. As tears stream down our faces, we'll know without doubt that the meaning of life has always been to live intimately with Him. Today's scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 3 to 9. The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria.

The farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit. There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, Come, let us go to Zion, to the LORD our God. This is what the LORD says, Sing with joy for Jacob, shout for the foremost of the nations.

Make your praises heard and say, LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel. See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor, a great throng will return. They will come with weeping, they will pray as I bring them back.

I will lead them beside streams of water, on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel's father and Ephraim is my firstborn son. Let's pray. Father God, we cannot wait for that great day when tears of joy will stream down our faces as all is made well. Thank you that that day is coming, however long it takes to arrive. And we thank you that our lives have meaning even before then too, because we know the meaning of life is to know you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening. I'm Sheridan Voisey and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.