Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Ezra chapter 3 verses 11 through 13 and all the people shouted with a great shout

when they praise the Lord because the foundation of the

house of the Lord was laid but many of the priests and Levites and heads of

father's houses old men who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this

house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not

distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the

people's weeping for the people shouted with a great shout and the sound was heard

far away. What a scene as the foundation for the rebuilding of the temple is laid.

And some people are shouting with joy.

Like it's happened. God's brought us back to Jerusalem. We're rebuilding the temple,

the house of the Lord. They're shouting for joy. At the same time, people who years before had seen the temple before it was destroyed,

had seen the house of the Lord before the exile and have now been brought back and are looking at this new

temple that's not as grand as it was before. They're weeping like loud

weeping so you have both shouting aloud for joy and

Weeping both among the people of God at the same time and when you think about that this scene you realize you know that's

true in so many circumstances among us as God's people even today like do we have things in our lives in the church to shout over

with joy that God has done and that God is doing. Yes, absolutely and at the same time do we have a reason to

weep to weep with a loud voice because our hearts are hurting over certain things that are happening in our lives and in our churches and in the world around us.

Yes, there's a sense in which as long as we live in this

fallen world the Christian life will be this mixture, this tension of both shouting and weeping of sorrow and joy

intermingled together. I just want to encourage you to leave the space room in your life and your family and in the church for both.

...