Several years ago Barbara Walters interviewed General Norman Schwartzkopf, one time commander of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. When asked about the cost of the war in terms of human life the general began to cry. Walters rather bluntly inquired, "General, aren't you afraid to cry...?" To which the general replied, "Barbara, I'm afraid of a man who can't cry!"

Here is a soldier who’s been trained to be tough, a man who’s seen more death and destruction than I know I will ever see and yet doesn’t apologize for his tears. In fact he's afraid of the one who can't cry.

Many of us aren’t so much afraid of tears as we are ashamed of tears. Maybe it’s because of the steady stream of messages we get: stop crying, shake it off, only babies cry. Crying makes us feel vulnerable, and we fear being vulnerable.

But in that same vein, I also have come to realize by experience that sometimes the absolute best thing you can do is to break down when you realize things are not as they should be. And things are NOT good. The situation is NOT funny. And sometimes you just have no choice but to cry.

That's a part of what we get from the next verse in our study, as we are in James chapter 4. Turn with me to James 4 and let's look at verse 9: "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." (ESV)