Tears form a track through life that leads the willing from grief to God. While some people get bitter instead of better, others allow difficulties to reveal their need for God.

The tracks of Job's tears started in the plains of "Catastrophe," wound through the valley of "Confusion," and ultimately led to God on the mountaintop of "Confession."

Job felt the sting of his friends' judgment: "My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God" (Job 16:20). Between God's seeming displeasure with Job and his friends' attacks on his honesty, Job was emotionally crushed-and his tears flowed.

Yet, once Job had wept enough, his tears cleared his eyes of his misapprehension of God. Job had never acknowledged that God was sovereign and had the right to deal with His creation as He wanted.

Just as human tears wash toxins out of our body, so Job's tears washed toxic attitudes about God out of Job's heart: "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6).

Tears and Our Journey Toward God
It's easier to see God through our tears because sorrow often leads to repentance: "For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Almost every time we weep, we "repent"-we change our minds about God. When a loved one dies, through our tears we think differently and afresh about God's comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). When a relationship causes tears to well up, we are made to think differently about what God expects of us as a peacemaker (Romans 12:18). And when the everyday stresses and disappointments of life produce tears, we see yet again that God is in control (Romans 8:28).

The spiritual life is a constant process of repentance-of changing our mind about who God is and how He works in our lives. The person who is not weeping, repenting, and rejoicing on a continual basis is the person whose vision of God is not as clear as it might otherwise be.

The Tracks of Your Tears
Can you look back and see the tracks of your own tears through the years? Did they continually wash away yesterday's perception of God and allow you to see Him with new clarity?

People who live in high-traffic metropolitan areas are often amazed at what they can see after a rainstorm clears the air. Our tears also make everything seem clearer...brighter...different. The pressure is relieved and our perspective is restored.

All that is not to say that tears are easy-there is a price to pay for gaining a clearer vision of God. After all, in the final analysis, tears are a result of PAIN! And pain hurts! So it is those who are willing to be humbled by life, by circumstances, by others, by their own failures, and yes, by the loving hand of God, who are most likely to weep tears of resignation and repentance-and see God more clearly as a result.

God sees our tears. In an hour of great suffering at the hands of the Philistines, David wrote, "You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?" (Psalm 56:8). David had a sense that he did not weep alone; that God saw and collected his tears in order to honor them. David ended his psalm by confessing, "For You have delivered my soul from death. Have You not kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" (verse 13).

God sees your tears as well. I pray that you will gain fresh perspective on the value of pain and the tears that often follow. Like Job, let the tracks of your tears be a lifetime journey to God. Don't stop with catastrophe or confusion- journey on to confession and behold God as He truly is: the God of all comfort, the God who sees and honors the tears you shed.

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This article was excerpted from Turning Points, Dr. David Jeremiah's devotional magazine. Call Turning Point at 1-800-947-1993 for your complimentary copy of Turning Points.