5.)Dealing With Disappointment

What to do when you feel God has let you down.

By Rev. Oliver W. Price

 

Nothing moves my heart more than the desolate cry of a believer who has lost touch with God. He has no idea how to recover the joy he once knew.

 

What is the problem? The answer is not the same in every case. Not all are in the same difficulty. Many, however, have one thing in common. They have never gotten down to the basics about God. Their God is too small. Their thoughts about God are pleasant daydreams and illusions. They haven’t seen Him as He really is.

 

Take the wisdom of God for example. Paul calls Him "God only wise" (Romans 16:27). He is saying that the rest of us have no wisdom whatever. Take that in.

 

It will shatter your daydreams, puncture your pride, and put you in your place. And then it will set your feet on solid rock.

 

J.I. Packer says a lot of Christians are going around deflated, defeated, and apathetic. They have received a shattering blow in life.

 

Up till their time of crisis they had always assumed they understood everything Almighty God is doing. They imagined themselves sitting in the situation room in the highest heaven.

 

They presumed they understood all the acts of divine providence. They had imagined they knew the motive behind every Almighty move.

 

Then something happened. Something totally unexpected. You’ve seen it happen too.

 

A promising candidate for the ministry suddenly dies in his last year of school. A missionary comes down with a dread disease and returns home two months after reaching the field. Does anyone know why? Probably not.

 

Life is full of such unexplainable events. Job never knew why he was put through his fiery ordeal. Even at the end of the book, God didn't tell him. But have you noticed that Job stopped asking why?

 

You've never let God be God to you until you admit you can't understand all mysteries. You bow down like Job and humbly acknowledge that God alone is wise.

 

You aren't supposed to share His wisdom. He alone is holy. Only God is good. Only God is omnipotent. In short, only God Is God. There is none like Him or beside Him.

 

Packer says that Christians who have lived under the illusion they could share all the wisdom of the Almighty become apathetic when their pride is punctured.

 

My own pride has been punctured. I almost lost my faith as a young man through a harsh, shattering experience in Christian work. It was painful, humiliating.

 

Then I saw how proud I had been to think that God is merely wiser than I. It took time, but in due course I joined Job on my face before God only wise. And I quit asking why.

 

Then my feet were set on the rock. God gave me a new song, the song of a soul set free from illusions about God and about myself.

Dear God, at last I have found You. (Or, more accurately, You have found me.) I have begun to know You as You really are. And I have found You only do wondrous things. Therefore, I will bless Your name at all times. Your praise shall continually be in my mouth."

Copyright 2001 by Rev. Oliver W. Price. All rights reserved.