Appointments with Disappointment
By David Faust
Has life disappointed you? You planned an outdoor wedding, but it rained. The job interview went poorly. The restaurant wasn’t as good as your friends said it would be. The promising business venture didn’t work out. Your long-awaited vacation fell short of expectations. Your team lost a game it should have won.
Have others disappointed you? A trusted friend let you down. A coworker quit and left you with extra work. A marketer lied to make a sale. You were generous with a needy neighbor, but the recipient of your kindness was rude and ungrateful.
Has the church disappointed you? Have you seen lofty visions derailed by petty squabbles and clashing egos? Have you seen vulnerable young believers neglected and faithful older saints pushed aside by careless shepherds? Have you been hurt by respected leaders who fell into immorality or left the faith?
Maybe you have been disappointed with yourself. For every accomplishment to savor, there’s a goal you didn’t achieve. You wanted to lose 10 pounds, but instead you gained 5. You forgot someone’s name after knowing them for years. In moments of introspection, you still find pockets of selfishness and immaturity lurking in your heart.
Has God ever disappointed you? You prayed and he said no. Or worse, it appeared he didn’t answer at all.
Over the years I have appreciated the writing of Philip Yancey. His book Where Is God When It Hurts? helped me wrestle with the problem of evil and gave me a useful tool for helping sufferers. Yancey wrote another book called Disappointment with God, which I eagerly purchased and read. Ironically, though, the book disappointed me because it didn’t offer any easy answers.
It Doesn’t Last Forever
If you are no stranger to disappointment, you will appreciate Romans 5:5. The New International Version translates this verse by saying,“hope does not put us to shame.” Other translations render it, “hope does not disappoint us.” The New American Standard Bible reads, “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Here’s how The Message paraphrases the verse: “In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”
That’s an uplifting thought. In Christ we won’t be shortchanged! Life may disappoint us . . . others may let us down . . . we may feel frustrated with ourselves or bewildered by God himself. But in the big picture, because of Christ these three remain: faith, hope, and love.
In a Bible college classroom, a student pressed his professor to answer a challenging question: “If God gives different rewards to the faithful, might some of us feel slighted?” The professor replied, “No one will be disappointed in Heaven.”
I like how Philip Yancey sums it up: “The Bible never belittles human disappointment . . . but it does add one key word: temporary. What we feel now, we will not always feel. Our disappointment is itself a sign, an aching, a hunger for something better. And faith is, in the end, a kind of homesickness—for a home we have never visited but have never once stopped longing for.”
Personal Challenge: On a piece of paper or in your personal journal, write a list of things that have disappointed you. What have you learned through these experiences? What has God taught you by allowing you to face disappointment? How does your faith in Christ help you deal with disappointing situations?
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