Seeing your prophetic promises fulfilled.
Recently I was reading in Psalm 56 when a familiar phrase stuck out to me, and I suddenly had a new understanding of something. I’d like to share it with you here. The phrase is in verse 8 where David said, “Put my tears in Your bottle: are they not in Your book?”
I know that there are so many different things that can be said about this. One could go in several different directions. But I’d like to focus on one idea here. David implores God to put his tears into His (God’s) bottle. Then he asked the question, “Are they not {already} in Your book?” It’s as though David is saying, “Father, I know you have a book written about me with every thought and plan You have for my life.” (He wrote about this in Psalm 139) “So this moment of tears is in your prophet book of promises, but I want them collected and saved in your bottle of prophetic fulfillments.” The book
represents God’s plans and promises for us. The bottle represents Him capturing the moment of fulfillment and keeping them for a memorial.
As I meditated on this for a moment, it was like the Holy Spirit whispered, “Your book is massive and full of Father’s good plans for you. How full is your bottle of promises fulfilled?”
Our tension is living between the book and the bottle. We all have prophetic promises. We all want prophetic fulfillment. It’s at this point that Hebrews 6:12 comes to mind, “that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
To receive our promises, we need to have faith and be patient. We need to keep our faith alive by staying in His word. (Romans 10:17) And we need to stir up our faith by rehearsing His promises to us and reflect on His character that He does not and cannot lie. (Titus 1:2) We need to develop patience in our lives knowing that God is at work (many times behind the scenes) to bring about all that He has promised.
I’d like to add one more element to the mix of faith and patience. Prayer!! And in the context of our passage here…heartfelt prayer. Prayer with some emotion attached to it. Not emotionalism, but Holy Spirit unction that comes from the heart and many times overflows into weeping, crying out, or tears streaming down our cheeks that Father can capture.
I did a quick search of the scriptures to see some places where prayer was made with tears. The first place it is mentioned is in II Kings 20:5 where Hezekiah prayed with tears that he would be healed and allowed to live. God heard his prayers. Captured his tears. And sent the prophet back to him to declare another 15 years added to his life. From his book to his bottle.
-Esther implored the king with tears. (Esther 8:3)
-King David prayed with tears. (Psalm 39:12)
-Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet.
-The father of a young afflicted child cried out with tears to Jesus that he had faith but needed help with his unbelief. (Mark 9:24)
-Jesus himself prayed with tears. (Hebrews 5:7)
It’s not that tears in and of themselves are a guarantee to answered prayer. But it is that sincere, fervent, heartfelt prayer is effective (James 5:16) in seeing fulfillment.
May your requests be moved from the book of promise to the bottle of fulfillment.
- What are some promises that Father has made to you?
- List your top three.
- Find some verses in the Bible that speak about these promises.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray fervently for their fulfilment.
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