Overcoming Disappointment
adminWe have three categories of people:
1.People who have been disappointed before.
2. People who are disappointed now.
3. People who are about to be disappointed
They are all bitter. There are people who are experiencing disappointment now. They’re battling with God. Everybody at one point will have to go through disappointment. Disappointment is dangerous. Throughout the bible we see people who are disappointed and draw lessons from them.
What is disappointment? Disappointment is an unfulfilled expectation. You had certain expectations of your boss, friends, yourself and then you got disappointed.
How do you handle disappointment? How do you get out of it?
There are people who are disappointed with God.
Romans 5:5 NKJV “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
The thing about disappointment is that disappointment and hope are in the same place in your heart. You can’t have both. Disappointment removes hope in your heart. You will have removed faith because faith is the substance of things hoped for. The enemy uses disappointment to erode your hope, because they live in the same place.
Disappointed people disappoint people. Disappointed people begin to dwell in a pity party.
Disappointment removes your hope you lose sight of what God is doing. Disappointment replaces and erodes hope so you begin to lose sight of every other thing God is doing in your life and you focus your entire life on this one thing.
Because you’re emotional about your disappointment,it constitutes everything in your life.
The one disappointment especially if you mix it with emotions erodes everything that God is doing and it erodes the hope that you have. Then you remove faith because it is the substance of things hoped for.
When an expectation is not met the way you wanted it the heart becomes sick. The bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Proverbs 13:12 NKJV “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”
There are people walking around with sick hearts. If where hope is supposed to be there’s disappointment, you’re walking around with disappointment.
You’re judging your present reality with your past experience. Disappointment doesn’t happen once, it usually comes in waves after waves and when it’s been a long time you lock that door. So it’s just you and God. But God hasn’t created us like this, because if disappointment can’t touch us then He also can’t.
We get disappointed sometimes because we expect from people that which only God can give us. A lot of times especially in a disappointment that involves relationships.
A lot of times men expect from their wives, husbands, girlfriends only that which God can give. They cannot give you an identity.
Most of us have drawn our expectations from what we have seen happen in soap operas and demand the same treatment from the partners we end up with.
If your relationship with God is broken, no human being can give you what God can give you. You put unreasonable expectations on a poor soul.
It is possible to excel in one area and be an utter failure in another area. There are people who prayer is all they know to avoid their lack of well being . Their prayer is an escape route because when you meet them, they are broken people.
We come to church to be serviced as we are broken people. We’re broken people. We’re here to hold on to God. The Church is a conglomeration of broken people. You cannot expect from human beings that which God can give you. We get disappointed because we overestimate people.
The fact that your boss is born again doesn’t mean they’ll pay you on time. You have a higher expectation than what is required. When you’re entering into a relationship, manage your expectations.As long as a human being is a human being they will disappoint you.
Don’t put it at zero as you would have locked yourself. Don’t put it at 104% as you’ll be hurt. When you manage your expectations you can survive because you are expecting but not expecting everything.
The thing that’s greater than intelligence quotient (IQ) is Emotional quotient. You must develop your EQ. It will help you in the real-world.
You must work on your EQ because if you don’t the world will teach you and you’ll become bitter. Joseph was disappointed by his brethren. They took him and put him inside a pit. The Bible says Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other brethren. How do you think they were feeling?
Genesis 37:3 NKJV “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors.”
As a parent, make a tunic of many colours for all the children. Joseph’s brothers had a bitter heart until they devised a way to get rid of the coat of many colors.
Before you go to God about the people who have disappointed you, go to God about those you have disappointed. We are quick to go to God about who has disappointed us and forget that we have also disappointed others. We identify with Joseph when we behave more like the brothers. We’re also a disappointment to others and expect grace to be extended. But when others disappoint us the world will not rest.
Jesus said how do you see the speck in your brother’s eye and not see the log in your eye.
When you want to be healed from disappointment of others, we must recognise that we have also been a disappointment to other people. This is not a one-sided story.
As God is healing you and me from the arrows of disappointment of other people, I must pray that God helps me that we might make up or that God may heal them.
Look for someone you owe and pay them back. Remove the log from your eye first and then you’ll have the capacity to see the spec in your brother’s eye. Hope does not disappoint.
We need to do the following:
- Manage our expectations
- Let’s not expect from humans what only God can do.
- Let’s allow God to be God. Trust in the plan of God. When you’re in the pit the only thing you have is God. The Bible says that God was with Joseph.
The pit is designed to draw you closer to God.
Jonah 2:1 NKJV “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly.”
If you’re in the pit and it does not draw you closer to God you have missed the whole point of the pit. The pit is supposed to bind you with God. Your lowest moments are designed to bring you closer to God. If you are able to leave a pit in your own strength,that means another low moment is coming because He is more interested in you than your circumstances.
If you miss out on drawing closer to God during your low moment then you have missed the class. If you manufacture a way of leaving that doesn’t involve God, you have postponed the class.
There are people who use their low moments to drag others with them. People in the pit don’t like to be alone.
The Bible says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. If your heart is broken, take that opportunity to get close to God.
Psalms 34:18 NKJV “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
If something has happened and your spirit is crushed, this is God’s opportunity to show you that He is God to you. If you use another way to get out of this that does not involve God, you’ll have another session.
The first thing in the pit is not to react against the person who brought you there. Most of us go to confront the “source” of our hurt. Take the opportunity to get close to God.
- Do not dwell on the guilt; always skip the guilt. Don’t dwell on the process of apportioning guilt.
There are people who spend time on the pit finding out whose fault it is. Always skip the guilt.
Go straight to salvation. Don’t dwell on the guilt. Your anger wants to brood on the guilt.
Joseph told his brothers they intended it for evil but God meant it for good.
Genesis 50:20 NKJV “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
- Acknowledge the pain
The pain is real so it cannot be ignored. Acknowledge the pain then release it to God. Look at it as something you can release.
This is not a one-time process. You have to release it to God over and over again. Your heart is like an octopus with tentacles and sometimes it releases and collects back the pain.
Joseph worked on this for 20 years. The fact that you still feel the pain doesn’t mean you don’t have the intention of releasing it. This is until the Lord removes the pain. One of the properties of love is that it must be freely given.
The Bible says Moses came from the mountain carrying two tablets that had been written by the finger of God on both sides. He found the Israelites playing, and he got angry and smashed the tablets with the laws. God didn’t stop using Moses after He smashed the laws.
As Moses was walking back he had to walk back to the broken pieces. There’s always a consequence of your disappointment but don’t concentrate on that consequence on your way to recovery.
There are people whose disappointment is permanent with them. Allow God to make that one fresh. Don’t dwell on the broken pieces of your disappointment.
This thing you’re going through you’re not alone; others have overcome it, so get up. Don’t dwell on the broken pieces of your disappointment. Allow God to give you a fresh start, in Jesus name.
