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.

Knowledge and Philosophy Could Never Lead to Joy Themselves

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about philosophy and theology. And, although there are others that know more than me (of course), I could tell you a few things, I’m sure.

I could tell you about Spinoza, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Epicurus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Marx, Descartes and a couple of other famous names.

I could tell you about existentialism, nihilism, mysticism, atheism, empiricism, rationalism, post-modernism, modernism, pre-modernism and more. I could tell you a bit of Eastern Philosophy and Indian Philosophy too, and so the list goes on.

I could tell you some things about theology too – eschatology, soteriology, ecclesiology, emergent theology (and the mix bag it is), methodism, anglicanism, roman catholicism, pentecostalism, fundamentalism, whatever you’d care to discuss.

And of course, there are those out there who could tell you far more if you wanted.

I’m no expert, but I know enough about all this stuff to know how darn interesting it all is and what a delight it is to know stuff and have high-convoluted ideas of how the Universe works and the mystery it all is. It’s a delight to be so darn knowledgeable isn’t it? To come up with some new bright idea. To know ideas. To be one-up on the rest.

Yet, it’s all worthless at the end of the day isn’t it? Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. (1 Cor 8: 1-2.) Even if I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and have a faith that can move mountains – but I have not love – I am nothing. (1 Cor 13:2.)

But even love can just become another philosophy to many. We’ve all heard the wishy-washy philosophies centred around ‘love’. The 60’s introduced some new definition of ‘love’ that had more to do with sex and lip-service than actual love, such as laying down your life for your friends.

I’ve heard lots of new agers talk about love too but it’s just a wonderful philosophy to many of them. I’ve seen Christians do the same. “You know Ryan, it’s all about love. It really is.” Take a sip of their tea. “Now, let me tell you about that girl (whoever), boy she really grates me…” (and the gossip continues).

God is love but love is not God. Philosophy and knowledge cannot save. It can’t bring life. It never seems to achieve the desire of our hearts to be in fellowship with the Creator. It delights the mind, yes, but it can never delight the heart. The joy of knowledge is fleeting, and so we need more. Study more. Read more. Look for the next big idea. This has been my experience and I know I’m not alone.

Knowledge may be there to help our hearts, because the heart is where it’s at. But we don’t treat it that way. We make it the point, when it isn’t the point.

But there is another joy… a lasting joy… one that sticks with you through good times and bad times. The joy that does speak to our hearts, as uncomfortable and difficult as this Joy is. For it is far easier to fill and mold the mind than let the heart be molded and filled by someone else. It’s far easier to study than to trust.

It is the Creator’s own joy. The only way to get life is to get it from the one who gives it – the Creator. God Himself. By trusting Him, completely. By giving Him our hearts.

Happy Beyond Description

Thanks to a tweet from John Piper, I picked this up at Ray Ortland’s blog and had to share. I really liked it.

In 1851 a group of British missionaries to Tierra del Fuego was forced to winter in the bitter cold while they waited for their supply ship to arrive. It came too late. They all died of cold and starvation. On Good Friday, April 18th, Richard Williams, a surgeon and Methodist lay preacher, wrote in his journal, “Poor and weak though we are, our abode is a very Bethel to our souls [Genesis 28:10-19], and God we feel and know is here.” On Wednesday, May 7th, he wrote, “Should anything prevent my ever adding to this, let all my beloved ones at home rest assured that I was happy beyond description when I wrote these lines and would not have changed situations with any man living.”

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23