Psalm Chapter 56 - To the chief Musician upon Jonath-elem-rechokim, Michtam of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath

Psalm 56: The Bottle of Tears

David writes this under the worst kind of pressure — the Philistines have him, the very men who have made their living by destroying him. And yet the middle of the psalm gives us one of the strangest, most tender images in all of Scripture. "Put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" The God of the universe, we are told, keeps a bottle. He collects tears. He writes them down. It is the sort of thing a child might dream up — the Almighty with his little apothecary's vial, his meticulous ledger, treasuring what the world dismisses as weakness. But this is what the psalmist knows, and what David, trembling in Gath, clings to: nothing is wasted. Every tear is counted. And so he repeats, almost as a refrain: "In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me." It is not bravado. It is the quiet arithmetic of one who knows his grief is being archived in heaven.

00:00 Be Merciful Unto Me
00:20 The Daily Swallowing
00:40 When I Am Afraid, I Will Trust
01:00 My Wanderings Numbered
01:15 Tears in the Bottle
01:30 Walking in the Light of the Living