Disappointment

And I said it just a couple weeks ago to a dear friend.  The words that would come back to pierce this wounded heart of mine.

“One of the greatest hindrances to our spiritual growth is disappointment.”

And I would aim to better… resolve to make better choices… and yet on a Saturday morning, faced with a disappointment… a disturbance to our preconceived plans… I felt the overwhelmingness of disappointment rear it’s ugly head once again.

Because the truth really is that we will all face discouragement and disappointment at one point or another.  We’ve all been grossly affected by failure, defeat, and frustration in our lives.

But disappointment doesn’t have to define us.  We are living in danger of disappointment, yes, however, we do not need to live with the danger that disappointment produces.

As believers in Jesus, we are called to a higher standard of living.  And not only have we been called for a more significant assignment than disappointment produces, we have been equipped to live victoriously in the afflictions that disappointment proposes.

1 John 5:4, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

Gal 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

Sometimes it’s a matter of repeating the words my heart can’t feel yet, but my head knows to be true, “… overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”  Romans 8:37

Let’s not allow disappointment to derail us.  Let’s not let it fester into a paralysis that leaves us in a state of immobilization.  We have work to do - and disappointment is only holding us back from the full live Jesus died for us to have.

May I be like Habakkuk when disappointments come… those things designed as hindrances to my faith… those obstacles deviously devised to cause enough frustration in me to want to quit: “Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”  Habakkuk 3:17-18

YET I will REJOICE.