After driving a borrowed truck 1660 kilometers, the owners told me (smirkingly!!) how many stops I made, how many hours I drove, my peak speeds and how often I exceeded the speed limits. Had I known in advance the truck was equipped with GPS and that I was being tracked and recorded, maybe my foot would not have been so heavy on the gas pedal. Long before engineers developed GPS technology and meteorologists came up with a rain gauge, such recording devices existed in Heaven and people on earth knew about them.

King David was one of the ancients who knew about heaven’s technology. Before he was crowned King of Israel, he was being hunted and pursued by King Saul of Israel. Saul feared David as a rival and was deeply jealous of David’s ability and the respect people had for him. To escape from Saul, David fled to Gath, in the land of the Philistines. He was in hostile territory. His own king was chasing him with murderous intent and now he was in the hands of other enemies – the Philistines. Psalm 56 is a poem David wrote while under Philistinian arrest. One of the lines in his poem/prayer to God goes like this:

On one hand, knowing God has a GPS system that records our wanderings, travels, and our location at all times could be frightening – when we are doing something wrong. We should never forget that. But David found incredible relief and reassurance knowing that God was mapping his every move. Others may have lost track of David – but God had not. God was able to pin-point David’s location with exact precision. God’s eye was following David every step of the way. And not only that, remember the rain? David found great comfort knowing that God had His own device for catching and gauging David’s precipitation – his tears. He knew about God’s bottle and God’s book. Rain gauges used by meteorologists catch actual rain droplets that fall to the ground. But God’s bottle is much more sophisticated. God’s bottle not only catches the tears that roll down the Christian’s cheek but the tears of the heart that do not stream out of the tear ducts of your eyes. They are the inner, invisible tears from the secret burdens and griefs that you carry. The tears behind the smiling face. The tears of the nights. The tears behind closed doors. God’s bottle catches them all and they are recorded and charted in His book.

If you are going through a real rough time right now, remember that God knows your exact position in the circumstances of life and He catches every tear drop – inside and out. Maybe in the presence of your friends you hide your tears or brush them away quickly. But if you draw near to your Heavenly Father today, you can let the tear drops linger on your cheek. You can allow them to gush out of your heart like a flood. You don’t need to be embarrassed in His Presence. There were many things David did not understand about the strange circumstances of his life but one thing he knew: “This I know, that God is for me.” Ps. 56:9