My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.
– Psalm 119:136
What a verse. Just stop and think for a moment. Is that true of your life, of my life? When we see disobedience to God’s Word around us. Or when we see dishonoring of God’s Word. When we see disregarding of God’s Word. Do we weep over that? Do streams of tears flow from our eyes because we have such high regard for God’s Word that it breaks our hearts and leads us to cry when God’s Word is not revered, honored, and obeyed?
Psalm 119:136 challenges us to examine ourselves.
Oh, even as I’m meditating on this. I need to confess, when I see, for example, immorality in the culture around me. And a total disregard for God’s Word, streams of tears are not flowing from my eyes. I want to love God’s Word like this. And I want to lead us to pray that we would all love God’s Word like this. That it would break our hearts when we see sin around us, when we see sin in us, that would literally bring us to tears and the process to compassion for those who are not keeping God’s Law.
To love for them, which is clearly the Spirit of Jesus in us when he saw the crowds Matthew nine, he had compassion on them and he knew that it was not good for them to be disobeying or disregarding God’s Law, and so he wept for them, Luke 19:41 tells us. His eyes shed streams of tears when he saw people who were in sin under God’s judgment and not revering and honoring his Word.
Psalm 119:136 challenges us not to treat sin casually.
So God, we pray for the Spirit of Jesus in us when we think about disobedience in our own lives. God, we pray for true, authentic, deep brokenness over sin and our own hearts that we would not be casual with sin or think this or that sin is small or insignificant. God, that we would be quick to confess sin with conviction and humility and contrition before you, that our eyes would shed streams of tears over sin in our own hearts that we hate and want to turn from.
And then, God in others’ lives when we see sin in the world around us, we pray for the Spirit of Jesus in us to produce streams of tears, that we would love your Word so much, we would revere your Word, honor your Word so much that when it is not kept, when it’s not honored, that it would break our hearts like Psalm 119:136 talks about. God, we pray for this kind of heart.
Prayer for the Tunni People
And all the more so when we think about people who’ve sinned against your Law written on their hearts and never even heard your Word of grace and mercy, in Jesus. Never even heard the good news of your love for them, they’re unreached. God, we pray specifically today for the Tunni people of Somalia. Among 39,000 of them, no known followers of Jesus, most having never even heard the good news of your love in Jesus through your Word.
God, cause our hearts to shed streams of tears over the people of Somalia that they might be reached with the gospel. God, we pray for that. Even as we pray for the spread of the gospel to people right around us today. God, we pray for the Spirit of Jesus in us that we read about here in Psalm 119:136 to be true of us. May our eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your Law. Produce this kind of Spirit in us. Lord Jesus, we pray in your name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
