I have to admit that I don't quite get the dramatic ways in which people react to certain outcomes. Take the Super Bowl recently played for an example: It has become quite popular to show people's reactions to disappointment on social media, and this is especially true for big events like the Super Bowl. And oh, how the losers howled! Some reacted in disbelief, some with fits of anger, and many with tears - streams of tears, one might say.

All because their team lost. Poor babies!

Don't get me wrong, I have suffered great disappointment from things not going my way in sporting events, especially when my kids were playing on the teams that lost. I know what it is to root for a team all the way to the biggest game only to see their season end with sudden defeat. After all of the effort it took for them to get there it is only natural to experience a variety of unwanted emotions when your team loses. But in the end it is just a game, isn't it?

I wonder sometimes how different this world would be if we saved our tears for situations that were truly worthy of our grief. Take the writer of the 119th Psalm for instance - here was a man who knew what truly merited the shedding of tears:

Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed.

Psalms 119:36, NIV 

While we are not told who wrote this particular Psalm, it was King David who wrote over half of the Psalms and this particular chapter does sound a lot like David. If it was it is notable that it was written by a man who was a war hero. A man whom countless thousands of warriors followed unquestioningly into battle, for he was a man of valor and honor. What could bring such a man to tears? Was it defeat in battle? No, it was the fact that God's laws were not obeyed.

I believe we should give more thought to this idea. God's laws are not given arbitrarily just so that we might have a set of rules to follow to see who will or will not obey them. The laws of God are there because there are certain principles that have heavy consequences when they are violated. We look at things such as the sexual immorality that our society is immersed in at the present time. It seems that no perversion is too extreme for our modern world. But these acts have ways of deteriorating the very souls of the people who engage in them, reducing their lives to shame and misery, but do we shed tears for these violations to God's laws?

We see things like drug and alcohol addiction that ruin entire families. We see wicked leaders with insatiable lusts for money and power who are lying and cheating and even destroying the lives of any who would stand in their way of achieving their quest for their desires. Do we shed tears for these types of things? Or how about our country's involvement in abortion? We see so many men and women involve themselves in the decision to take the lives of their unborn children - does this move us to tears? Recent statistics show that in America alone over 50 million babies have had their lives snuffed out since abortion was legalized, but it hardly gets a mention anymore. I guess we get so used to some sins that we don't even consider the outcome of a people so steeped in sin.

But we should! And it ought to cause a sorrow among the righteous that would produce a response that is at least as great as the tears that are shed when somebody's favorite team loses the big game. For sin has consequences. This is why sin is sin, it has consequences! Until we realize that, both as individuals and as a society, we will probably continue to shed tears for things that really don't matter, while at the same time failing to even feel a pang of remorse when the innocent suffer because God's laws are not being obeyed. It's something to consider, don't you think?