As I was once
again facing such thoughts this morning, I decided to ask God this simple
question: “What are you teaching me today about the power of disappointment?” Since
I know that this is a common malady among Bible-believing Christians, I hope
that my place in the body of Christ will help and encourage you in your place
in the body of Christ. Why do I say this?
Because,
pastors are “12 to
equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature
manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no
longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every
wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the
truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into
Christ, 16 from
whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is
equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it
builds itself up in love.”[1] (That’s my short answer!)
With that
glorious work of God as our aim, here is the first thing to consider: the
context of this question is that the Scriptures make absolutely certain that
the believer in Jesus Christ will not be disappointed in the end result of
following Jesus Christ. God warns us about all kinds of troubles and hardships
that will follow us along our heavenly journey. He tells us that even family
members will desert us and leave us abandoned.[2] However,
God makes very clear that it is those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who
will not be ashamed or disappointed in what we will experience when we arrive
in the heavenly presence, once and for all, living there forever.[3]
Jesus told his
disciples that he would be treated shamefully. However, the end of the story would
not be shame, but his glorious resurrection.[4] He
clarified that, “I have
said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will
have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”[5]Tribulation does not cancel out the believer’s joy. Even though
things will happen to cause sorrow, the end will be an eternal life of
rejoicing in Jesus Christ.[6]
Paul told the
church that we would be able to rejoice in our sufferings because they would
result in us being glorified, not disappointed[7]. He
went so far as to say that our “hope does not put us to shame” [8]because
of the way God’s love has “been poured
into our hearts”, assuring us that our eternal outcome is secure in Jesus Christ.
For brevity’s sake,
I simply want to leave you with this encouragement, that the end of the
believer’s life is not going to be disappointment, but eternal joy. As David
wrote approximately three millennia ago, “You
make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are
pleasures forevermore.”[9]The
path we walk, that seems tangled with far too many sorrows, is the path of life
itself, and it leads us into the full measure of Jesus’ joy. There will be no
disappointment whatsoever at the finish line of the racetrack to heaven.
Second, I am
facing the objective scenario in my life, and in people in the church, that we
are so afraid of disappointment that we hesitate to entertain “possibilities”
in prayer because of how it feels when they are not fulfilled. If we pray about
having connection with people, and we allow our hearts to wish for these
things, and long for them, we must then bear the heartache of these people not
wanting God, and not wanting us. Paul expressed this so poignantly:
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my
conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in
my heart. 3 For
I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake
of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9)
This is what
we want to avoid at any cost: “great
sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” However, this constant sorrow
and anguish was totally consistent with Paul’s joy in the Lord Jesus Christ[10],
and all his encouragements to the church to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”[11]
Jesus
himself was described as, “…a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief;”[12] and yet he told his
disciples, “These things I have
spoken to you, that my joy may
be in you, and that your joy may
be full.”[13]
He could rejoice in the Holy Spirit when he saw evidence of his Father’s work
in his disciples,[14]
and weep over Jerusalem because they could not see that their Messiah had come
to them.[15]
One of the
questions that come to mind when I consider how many Christians have a
crippling fear of disappointment is this: “What pain are these people carrying
in their hearts that has never been met by God’s healing for the brokenhearted
and his binding up of their wounds?”[16]As
best I can understand, our reluctance to pray about things that could end up in
disappointment arises from our fear of pain. Living with disappointment hurts,
we cringe at living with long-term emotional pain, so we try to dissociate from
our disappointments.
The problem
with any form of dissociation, avoidance, denial, suppression of our true
feelings, or any other synonymous thought, is that this means that some part of
our hearts has closed down to Jesus. The background hum of our hurt and
disappointment lulls us into a victim-mindset that leaves us feeling justified
in keeping Jesus out of our dark, back-of-the-house, storerooms of pain. We
become like the lukewarm church that finds Jesus standing on the outside calling
and knocking to come back in.[17]
Why do we
become lukewarm when we keep Jesus out of the pain in our hearts? Because we
are designed to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind.”[18]
When we shut Jesus out of the painful things in our hearts, or the scary things
in our souls, or the troubling thoughts of our minds, we do not experience the
feeling of fulfillment that comes from knowing him with the totality of our
being.
When we join
Paul in praying that God would give us “the
Spirit of wisdom and revelation” in the knowledge of Christ, so that the
eyes of our hearts would be enlightened, and we would know the hope of our
calling, and the glorious inheritance that is waiting for us in heaven,[19] we
must be willing to open our whole hearts to Jesus. We cannot fill our hearts
with the truth of our hope, and calling, and glorious inheritance, while all
kinds of messed-up hurts, and doubts, and sarky beliefs, are cluttering the
space. We must first bring the heartaches to Jesus, let him heal them, and then
give us his thoughts about our lives.
Paul said, “Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you
may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[20] Part of conforming to this world is using the same coping
strategies and self-protection as the world uses because they lack any
connection to Jesus Christ. Believers in Jesus Christ have “the renewal of the mind” to change them from fear-based,
self-protective Egyptians who are always living in de-Nile, into pure-hearted,[21] sincere,[22]children of God who abandon ourseles to the love of Christ[23] and the brotherhood of believers.[24]
My
aim is to convince scared, self-protective Christians that it is those who
mourn who are blessed, because “they shall be comforted.”[25]I have put this to the test many times, and now I have a testimony of
how it works. When I go to God and mourn out every heartache I can possibly
imagine, I come away with comfort I would never have experienced if I were hiding
my pain inside.
The
same thing was said a thousand years earlier when David wrote, “Weeping
may tarry for the night, but joy
comes with the morning.”[26]
God will bring us to face our heartaches so that we weep them out to him, but
his joy comes in the morning. The painful path does not end in pain, but in
healing. The one who “goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves
with him.”[27]
Instead of
being afraid of pain, and heartache, and tears, let us use them to till and
water the ground so that we can grow up in Christ. I am actually at a loss for
words to convince my hurting brothers and sisters that facing our pain is the
most liberating thing we can do, no matter whether that pain focuses mostly on
our own sins, or mostly on the sins of others against us. What the word of God teaches,
and my testimony affirms, is that Jesus heals it all.
So, does
anyone want to get growing? Let us walk together in Jesus Christ our Savior. He works everything for our good!
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Ephesians 4
[2]
John 10:16-23
[3]
“as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying
in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in
him will not be put to shame.’” (Romans 9:23)
[4]
“31 And
taking the twelve, he said to them, ‘See, we are going
up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the
prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and
will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33 And after flogging him, they
will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.’” (Luke 18)
[5]
John 16:33
[6]
“20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep
and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow
will turn into joy. 21 When
a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she
has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a
human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you
again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
(John 16)
[7]
“28 And
we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to
be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn
among many brothers. 30 And
those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified,
and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8)
[8]
“3 Not
only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, 4 and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to
shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5)
[9]
Psalm 16:11
[10]
Paul’s exhortation to “Rejoice always”
(I Thessalonians 5:16) was what he exemplified himself, and expected of the
churches. I typed the words “joy, rejoice, rejoicing” in my online concordance
and found 49 references in Paul’s letters to the churches.
[11]
Philippians 4:4
[12]
Isaiah 53:3
[13]
John 15:11
[14]
“In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said,
“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these
things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;
yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Luke 10:21)
[15]
“41 And
when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, ‘Would that you,
even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they
are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your
enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on
every side 44 and
tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will
not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of
your visitation.’” (Luke 19)
[16]
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up
their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)
[17]
Revelation 3:14-22. Verse 20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
[18]
Matthew 22:37
[19]
“15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and
your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you,
remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the
knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may
know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness
of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at
his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and
power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age
but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave
him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness
of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1)
[20]
Romans 12:2
[21]
Matthew 5:8
[22]
“The aim of our charge is love that
issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (I Timothy 1:5)
[23]
“1Therefore
be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5)
[24]
“Love the brotherhood.” (I Peter 3:17); “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of
suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood
throughout the world.” (I Peter 5:9)
[25]
Matthew 5:4
[26]
Psalm 30:5
[27]
Psalm 126:6
