No one is exempt from sadness. It is a part of the human condition, and expressing our sadness through grieving is as necessary as eating and breathing.
However, when we let our sadness consume us, we build a Tower of Weeping that can overshadow every good thing. We look out, and we see only sadness. We become convinced that we are alone, and no one cares.
Instead, God wants us to let our praises rise above our weeping, for even as we grieve, he desires to bless us with new and wonderful joys.
Ezra 3:10 relates the events surrounding the building of the new Temple. When the foundations were laid, it was a time of great rejoicing, with elaborate costumes, loud trumpets, and crashing cymbals.
However, there were those who were so fixated on what they had lost, they could only remember the glory of the first Temple, and they wept aloud, wailing their sorrow to those who would listen.
Is that what we do sometimes? God gives us blessings, and all we can do is mourn what we once had? We hold a new grandbaby, but we are consumed with the loss of our spouse. We enter our retirement years, but we mourn the quickness of youth. The choir director introduces a new song, and we complain about the ones we no longer sing.
Ezra 3:10 goes on, telling us that the praises of the people overshadowed the sounds of sorrow. One voice could not be told from another, and the voices of the people rose unto God as the sweet sound of thanksgiving.
This is a lesson we need to learn. In Nehemiah 9:5, we are instructed to stand up and bless the Lord our God for ever and ever. Nehemiah 12:24 says to give praise and thanks, according to the commandment of David. Nehemiah 12:46 goes one step further. We are to set up chiefs of the singers to lead us in praises unto the Lord.
What are our chiefs of the singers? They are our choir directors; our friends who call us to share their good news; those who rejoice with us when good things come our way. They are our Towers of Praise unto the Lord God almighty.
Have we built a Tower of Weeping for all we have lost, or has our rejoicing lifted us up into a Tower of Praise? We may think we are looking out from our tower, but people are also looking at us. What tower do they see?
We must not let grief overshadow the great things the Lord does for us every day of our lives.
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Code: FGO.H.05.13.vp