Being Honest: God Has Disappointed Me

Picture credit – here

Has God ever disappointed you? He’s disappointed me, many times, if I’m going to be honest. Which obviously I am.

Several things have influenced this post. One, last week someone I know objected to Philip Yancey’s book ‘Disappointment with God’. I don’t think they quite understood the point of the book, nor Yancey’s style, which is usually about brutal honesty.

Second, I find myself once again disappointed with many things in my life that I have hoped for. And after each disappointment, each fresh realisation that actually certain things MAY NEVER happen that I hope(d) for, I have to go back to a startling revelation that was given to me years and years ago, and tends to become deeper and deeper every time I get to this point of disappointment: The point of my life is to find joy in it. In the life I have. In the circumstances I am in, regardless of what they are. The point is not to find joy in the life I wish I had; the life I live in my dreams; a life that can sometimes become so real that the only response to my own life is disappointment and depression and frustration that God doesn’t seem to care much about the life I WANT.

God is more committed to our life than we are. Let me reiterate it to drive it home. He is more committed to my life than I am. I want the life of my dreams, he wants me to enjoy the life I’ve actually got. It’s like I’m munching on a delicious and juicy nectarine but thinking to myself that I’d prefer an orange. Oh why, Lord, did you give me this delicious nectarine? I want an orange. And so I miss just how wonderful the nectarine is because my mind is thinking about how great it would be if I had an orange.

God seems very interested in giving us joy IN our circumstances, not just taking our circumstances away. Joy is in God, not in our circumstances going away. I have to keep learning that lesson. The miracle of a life in God is being joyous in the troubles of life, not the troubles of life just being taken away. Yes, God does take away some troubles, but there are other troubles that seem to stay. But yet God is there, ready to give us joy in the midst of those troubles, as we cling to our great hope that finally, one day, EVERY tear will be wiped away and everything will, at last, be made new. Including us.

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Being Honest: God Has Disappointed Me

Picture credit — here

Has God ever disappointed you? He’s disappointed me, many times, if I’m going to be honest. Which obviously I am.

Several things have influenced this post. One, last week someone I know objected to Philip Yancey’s book ‘Disappointment with God’. I don’t think they quite understood the point of the book, nor Yancey’s style, which is usually about brutal honesty.

Second, I find myself once again disappointed with many things in my life that I have hoped for. And after each disappointment, each fresh realisation that actually certain things MAY NEVER happen that I hope(d) for, I have to go back to a startling revelation that was given to me years and years ago, and tends to become deeper and deeper every time I get to this point of disappointment: The point of my life is to find joy in it. In the life I have. In the circumstances I am in, regardless of what they are. The point is not to find joy in the life I wish I had; the life I live in my dreams; a life that can sometimes become so real that the only response to my own life is disappointment and depression and frustration that God doesn’t seem to care much about the life I WANT.

God is more committed to our life than we are. Let me reiterate it to drive it home. He is more committed to my life than I am. I want the life of my dreams, he wants me to enjoy the life I’ve actually got. It’s like I’m munching on a delicious and juicy nectarine but thinking to myself that I’d prefer an orange. Oh why, Lord, did you give me this delicious nectarine? I want an orange. And so I miss just how wonderful the nectarine is because my mind is thinking about how great it would be if I had an orange.

God seems very interested in giving us joy IN our circumstances, not just taking our circumstances away. Joy is in God, not in our circumstances going away. I have to keep learning that lesson. The miracle of a life in God is being joyous in the troubles of life, not the troubles of life just being taken away. Yes, God does take away some troubles, but there are other troubles that seem to stay. But yet God is there, ready to give us joy in the midst of those troubles, as we cling to our great hope that finally, one day, EVERY tear will be wiped away and everything will, at last, be made new. Including us.

How Ambition Makes Me a Bad Friend

I have this issue with ambition that I regularly struggle with. You see, I want to go places, do things, live my life! So in an effort to get there I ignore the here. I look to the future, a thing that the world says I must do, but by doing I so largely ignore the present.

This is known as unhealthy ambition. And it makes me a very bad friend and son to my folks. This is because it gets me to always work towards the goal. For me, the goal is to become a full time novelist. So I’m working at my writing career from all angles to get there, so that one day I’ll “have the time to spend with those I love.”

The problem is that that time will never come. I mean, I know one day I’ll be a full time novelist, but what makes me think I’ll then have the time to spend with those I love? I have to keep my career going then.

Most of us work our lives away so we can enjoy our retirement. But when our retirement comes it’s short lived because our health, and our relationships, suffered so much in the process.

What we really all want is joy, peace, love and a bit of adventure. At least that’s how it is for me. And I can have that all pretty easily by just looking for it in the right place.

For the Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure hidden in a field. God is the source of real joy. That’s where I need to go looking for it. But why do I get sidetracked so easily, and so miss the very thing I’m looking for?

Rather I keep chasing after fleeting dreams which, even though they may be good in themselves, are tainted by this unhealthy ambition to get me there.

I’m know my experience is not unique. If you’re like me, let’s look to God as the source of our joy and hope and let our ultimate ambition be to truly know Him.