Life has an innumerable number of ways to disappoint us. I can never count the times I have been disappointed in my life. Disappointment I have brought upon myself by bad choices, disappointments I have incurred by the actions of others, and disappointments because life does not treat us fairly. Why should we expect it to? We live among fallen men and women in a cursed world. Sinners will do what sinners do. Sometimes things go our way, but many times they do not. In the course of my pastoral ministry for 34 years I have seen the heartaches, the tears, the sorrows, and the death of dreams that disappointment brings. The career you wanted failed to materialize. The loving husband or wife you desired turned out to be someone other than you thought. The son or daughter you raised went their own way. The robust health you worked to obtain and maintain brought you cancer instead. The friends you thought you had for life, could not be found when you when you needed them the most. In times like these we can begin to feel that even God has disappointed us and forsaken us. He seems like a distant stranger. You are not alone. On the road to Emmaus two disciples of Jesus met someone who appeared to be a stranger. The encounter in Luke 24:13-21 goes like this:
"Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him. And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?” And He said to them, “What things?” So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.
Did you pick up on the disappointment of the disciples? They were hoping Jesus was going to redeem Israel and usher in the Kingdom of God they longed for. But that did not happen. Jesus had been crucified on a cross and a dead Messiah/deliverer does not offer any hope, or so they reasoned. After Jesus called them foolish ones and slow of heart, He explained that what had happened was all in the plan of God for a greater purpose and "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (27). This is the problem we all face in the midst of our disappointments. We cannot see what God can see. We do not know what only God can know. We fail to understand the greater purpose God is fulfilling in our lives. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God etc., but somehow in the midst of our disappointment, that Scripture in Romans 8 seems like a promise to others and not to us. What do we do in such times? What did Habakkuk do when he looked for answers?
“I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected (Habakkuk 2:1).
God’s
answer was write what I tell you, in the end it will not disappoint, wait for
it - because it will surely come to pass. And while you are waiting to make sense of it all,
remember that, “the just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Keep pressing on dear saints of God, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of your faith (Hebrews 12:2).
Our disappointments are God’s way of drawing us
closer to Him. They are the fire that He uses to refine the gold and make us
more like His Son.
Keep pressing on,
Pastor Tom
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