“Does God cry?” That was the question asked of us by our worship pastor at a choir rehearsal one evening. One response was that we know Jesus cried (John 11:35) and, since Jesus is one with the Father, then the answer must be yes. But, Jesus was also human. Couldn’t it just be the human part of Him that cried? Another response was that, since man was created in God’s image, and we know that man cries, then God must cry also. When the discussion ended, we had come to the conclusion that Goes does cry.
The next day, I decided to search Scripture for an answer to this question. While I could not find a Scripture that said definitively that God cries, I did find one that hints to it: Genesis 6:6. In that verse, we read that, due to man’s rebellion, God was sorry He created him. In one version of the Bible, it says that it broke His heart; in another it says that He was grieved in His heart. I pulled out my thesaurus and discovered that a synonym for the word “grieve” is “cry.” So, if God grieved, it is quite possible that He cried.
I would like to believe that, when we cry, when our hearts are broken or we are grieving, God cries along with us. Since God loves us, it makes sense that He would cry with us. A song by the Gaither Vocal Band says that when we cry, God cries, and when we hurt, God hurts. I believe that is true.
The Bible tells us that David was a man after God’s own heart. Since we know that to be true, wouldn’t it stand to reason that, if David cried, then God must cry, too? 1 Samuel 30:4 says that David and his men wept aloud to the point where they had no strength left to weep any more. 1 Samuel 20:41 says that both David and Jonathan wept together, but it was David who wept the most. So, I believe in my heart that God does cry.
A Worshiper's Journal 