When Christians Cry

So many Christians, when they cry, do so unto the world. There is no true comfort here, not for one who has been enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Once we have tasted of that sweet fellowship with the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Spirit, one could travel every inch of this world, and not find the peace and comfort of soul that is found in Christ. Oh, the vanity of life when we are downcast! We don't need to despair, for where ever we are found, from the ends of the earth, we are never too far from the Masters ear. We are never too far from the love of God. Whether under the depths of the sea, to the farthest reaches of the plains, God will hear our cry. We may be far from friends and family, we may be alone and afraid, but we are never truly alone if we have Christ. He who bore our sins will never leave nor forsake us. David said "when my heart is overwhelmed". Browns Driver Briggs defines the Hebrew word here ataph translated overwhelmed as 'to cover, to envelop ones self, or to be feeble, faint, growing weak.' The idea is that the heart is weak, feeble, overcome by sorrows. As if shipwrecked at sea, with the waves of grief shrouding the soul. How many times have the children of God been overwhelmed? Our hearts are feeble. Even the most hardened soul, at some point has been overwhelmed. How much more so for the children of the most high? We see our families away from God, our neighbors leaving this world with out Christ, we suffer persecutions and are attacked by our enemy, the Devil, looking about this world which waxes worse and worse each day. Sometimes the saints of God, we once had sweet fellowship with, now forsaking the assembly of our great God. The grief, the pain, the sorrow is overwhelming. That doesn't even take into consideration the sorrow of our hearts over our own souls for our own sin. How we fail our Lord! Oh how oft we sin against our Saviour! Are not our hearts grieved and overwhelmed at our failures, the sin in our lives? Are we not overwhelmed at times from the great work we have been commissioned to do, and yet it seems we spin our wheels, and toil and labor, with seemingly no results? I cry unto God when my heart is feeble. When I am filled with doubts and fears. When I don't understand, and strive to serve my God. I cry unto my God when I am alone, when my faith is weak and I'm sorely tried. The children of God have and truly know what it is like to where the cloak of despair, and to languish in the depths of grief, and to have the heart overwhelmed, beyond the ability to express the emotion of our fainting fits of despondency. We will have a heart that is overwhelmed.

But if that was the end of our walk with Christ, we would be of all men most miserable. All the son's of Adam experience such woe, but the joy of the Christian is we do not remain. The world will seek comfort in self, pleasures and other futile attempts of merriment, but we have such a blessed treasure, for when we are weak, He is made strong. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Jesus is the Rock that is higher than I.

When our hearts are overwhelmed, it is Christ in which we find safety and refuge. When we are overcome we are as is we were lost at sea, shipwrecked with no hope of recovery, no hope of making it to shore, with drowning in despair our only conceivable hope. Jesus Christ is the Rock that is higher than I. He is the safety when our hearts are overwhelmed, He is the mighty Rock of refuge, and of our salvation. He is higher than I, higher than our troubles, higher than we could ever get ourselves. Psalm 18:2 says The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. When we are overcome by grief and sorrow, Christ is where we must flee. Jesus is the solid, secure, and safe refuge. Through the blood of Christ, we have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Lead me to the Rock, for I can't go on my own. I am too distraught to find my own way, to weak to see, lead me, Holy Spirit, in my distress, to the Rock. Let me never look for refuge in any other. Lead me, take me, help me! I cry out when I can=t help myself, but not to my own devices, not to my own works, but to the Rock, the solid rock, that is higher, loftier, mightier than I, that has hope and life for all who cling to Him.