What Does it Mean to Sow in Tears

Scripture says "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy" Psalm 126:5. What does that mean? How does it relate to living through a difficult season? I propose that the difficult season, painful as it is, offers a unique opportunity to trust God on a different level. Your tears are precious to God.  Don't let them go to waste - sow them.  

Transcript:

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing.

This is the podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I'm specifically using that word rebuild because we're designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life.

Now, a few different things can lead you to that point where it really feels like you're starting over.

For me, it was divorce after a 20-year marriage.

For my sister, it was the unexpected death of her spouse.

But I think the common thing here is when all your plans, all your hopes and dreams for the future have gone up in smoke.

And it really does.

It feels like you're starting over.

And that feels itchy, to say the least.

It feels overwhelming.

But I'm here to tell you, you are not alone.

You're actually in the right place.

Welcome.

I am so glad that you're here.

Now, if you'll remember, when we first started, I said there were five areas I focused on when I rebuilt my life.

I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, and growth and goals.

And I said that each episode would fall into one of those five categories.

So the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about financial health, and ways to save, and ways to earn extra money.

So today, let's circle back around to our spiritual health.

And I want to talk about something that brought me a great deal of comfort when I was going through my dark season.

And it's this idea of sowing in tears and reaping in joy.

Now, this is a scripture, and we can find it in Psalms.

It's Psalms 126, verse 5 and 6.

And it says, Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Okay, what does that even mean?

And how does that relate to us when we're going through a dark time?

What does that mean?

I'm going to do my best to explain it.

I heard a teaching on this when I was in a difficult season, and it, like I said, brought so much comfort to me.

I had heard, I think, the scripture growing up.

I was not unaware of it, but it had no meaning for me.

I had no grid, no place to put it.

It just seemed like an odd scripture.

Okay, so let's kind of get the context of what it would mean to sow in tears.

So what this is talking about is back in this day and time, right, there would be famine, different things would happen.

So if you were sowing in tears, what it meant was that you were taking that seed, and instead of eating it, instead of feeding it to your children, you have to hold back enough to replant.

You have to go sow it in the field, and hopefully the next harvest will be better than the last, and we'll have plenty.

But it's really hard to say, we can't eat this.

We have to invest it into our future.

We can't eat this.

And even though what's going on right now is so hard, it's even harder, because part of what we have to eat, we can't eat.

We have to sow.

And so they would sow crying and weeping, because they knew that that, what they were sowing into the ground, could have been food.

It could have sustained them, but it wouldn't have lasted, right?

It woul