Young Adult Retreat - The Five Tears of God.

Journal of a young adult retreat - the five tears of God.

This weekend I attended a young adult retreat. It was a four-day camp at Johor, Malaysia. I was there to minister and to receive ministry. 

Although the theme of the retreat was plugged-in, that is, connecting to the source of life and empowerment, I felt there was another message running in parallel and it was this: -

“Lord, let me be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” 

And the guiding verse for that message was Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.”

Let me share why I felt that way.

As I went around and sat with the different groups to listen to their sharing, I realised that there was indeed a common thread that ran through the retreat, and it was a cry of the heart to be understood, to be authentic, to be restored and to overcome.

Most of those who attended the retreat are in their twenties, some are still studying, making their way to tertiary education, and others have just entered the workforce. 

These are people who candidly shared their struggles with faith in a world that challenges and tempts them in every way conceivable. There is no doubt that many have stumbled in their walk as they grapple to understand how to keep their faith intact and the hope alive. 

This led me to imagine the things that broke God’s heart and the yearning to know intimately the reality of this brokenness within my own life. And I can best describe it metaphorically as the five tears of God.

1st tear - The struggle is about the one I have mentioned above. It is the struggle to make sense of the world as they experience it for the first time. 

I can imagine that God saw their heart and understood how they felt too. It was not a world so different from the time he sent his Son to live in and die for. In fact, the heart of men has not changed since then. And that breaks the heart of God. I call this struggle the struggle with the world.

2nd tear - This is the struggle of the faith. It is where the faith (that they know so well in the church their parents grow up in) meets the world that seeks to change them. 

In essence, it is a fight to resist conformity with the things and standards of the world. This can be quite a cultural shock for them when their carefully nurtured ideals confront raw reality. 

The widening gap for them is how to reconcile their faith with the world, how to remain set apart for God as they carry out their duties in the roles they play as students, employees, office colleagues and even bosses as they start their own businesses. 

I believe God hears their cry as the flickering candle of their faith tries their darnest to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Their struggles are not unfamiliar to God and that too breaks the heart of God.

3rd tear - This is the struggle of the heart as it battles to remain pure. I have spoken to a few of the young adults in the retreat and their struggles went to the root of their faith. 

They struggle to live an upright life, yet there are urges within them that they could not understand. They want to do right with God, to overcome the siren calls of the flesh, but every time the resolve is built up, the carnal tide raises another standard of novelty and self-indulgence that they find almost impossible to overcome.

Their failure led them to a place of resignation and disappointments. Their cries at most times fell on deaf ears. This reality breaks their heart and it breaks the Father’s heart too. 

4th tear - This struggle is the struggle to find meaning and purpose. This is where the disillusionment is the strongest. Their moral compass points to everything but the Cross that they so desire to draw near to. The things of the world do not go strangely dim for them. In fact, it insidiously illuminates to lure them in like a mirage in the desert calling to their unrooted soul. 

Alas, the pursuit of success is a success of the world, the happiness they seek is to never be content with what they have, and the only goal that settles them strangely is the one that comes with a heart that strives endlessly for more and more, because no one wants to be left behind. And the online acronym “FOMO” was how one of them described it to me. 

This is a heart that is lost in the midst of the chaos, and in their anguish, they chased in vain for the things that can never satisfy or fill their hearts. This is the things that break the heart of God. 

And...

5th tear - For the final tear, let me just say that the retreat did not end there. 

In the nights of sharing about the brokenness experienced in relationships, the last tear was reserved to that of our Saviour‘s. It was a human tear for the same suffering that we all go through or will go through. 

It was the cry of the heart when he was left to die on the Cross. It was also a cry to draw all men and women unto him, because there is a better way amidst our disappointment and disillusionment. 

The Cross is to me never an abstract, or merely a philosophical argument. It is historical and messanic. It is redemptive and restorative. Most of all, it is a life exemplified by perseverance and love. 

The hope of the Cross is about the hope of a journey of high discipline and of the narrow road which eventually translates into a life of overcoming. 

Our Saviour’s tear therefore supersedes all. It transcends the lures and seduction of this world. It satisfies the vacantness of our heart. And it nourishes the spirit for a purpose beyond the glitters of this world and the appetites of the flesh. 

As the retreat ends today, I leave the place with this hope for the young adults who participated in the retreat with utmost sincerity. 

This hope is anchored in the assurance that there is a valley - that though can’t be avoided - but more so, there is also a way out of our valley. And this way is led by a love unconditional, bought for with a sacrifice unwavering, and is made complete when the last human tear trickled down with this cry: “It is finished”. 

And it is finished because He has turned our mourning into dancing, our sadness into joy and our endless striving into a peace unsurpassed, unhurried.

For this is the same joy from the tear shed by a human two thousand years ago that has and will transform our hardscrabble journey into one of ultimate victory. Amen