Dealing with Disappointment
Disappointments are an inevitable aspect of life. Life has curve balls. Trials, difficulties, failures, and loss are really not an “if” part of life but a “when.” Often with disappointment doubt will begin to creep into life. Doubt leads to discouragement. The seeds of discouragement are sown into every area of life leading to an ineffective and purposeless life. Jesus never promised a life that would be free of disappointments. He did promise freedom, but that freedom is one that emancipates from the power of sin. It is not a promise of lifelong ease. When dealing with disappointment there are a few things that, when present, can cause faith to struggle. Recognizing these will help you deal with disappointment in a healthy way. When you realize your faith is wavering ask if you have started to:
View Circumstances through Our Self
At times disappointments seem far greater because it is a self-focused lens. Self-centered thinking is applied to what is happening. Maybe your personal reasoning disagrees with it, or it doesn’t seem to favor you or help your situation. God doesn’t act in ways that will always make sense from a human perspective, or reasoning. Look at the experiences of Job in the Old Testament, or some of the things that happened to Joseph in his early life. When circumstances are viewed through only self then a disappointment can feel far more discouraging than it really is and can make you doubt God’s faithfulness. Remind yourself that God works often in ways that won’t make sense immediately, but trust God’s story and work to know that it will in time.
Allow Feelings to Define Circumstances
When disappointment enters life it can be far too easy to allow feelings to be the definer of what happened. Maybe it is anxiety, or a feeling of unworthiness, or fear, or some other emotion that leaves you feeling far from God. Feelings are great tools to help you identify what you are experiencing in the moment, but they are horrible definers of truth. Viewing your disappointment through your feelings will skew the understanding of it and can lead you into wavering faith. Trust what God says about you and who you are above the circumstance, or disappointment. Since disappointments are an inevitable part of life, take the moment to seek what God wants to teach you through it. See how God is protecting you, growing you, and teaching you through it.
Harbor Hidden Sin or Shame Over Past Sins
Nothing is hidden from God. Trying to hide sin will make small disappointments feel like mountainous disasters. If there is an ongoing sin in your life you need to bring it to the cross and seek forgiveness. You need accountability in life and not having a close knot friend, or friends, that you can share with can lead to all sorts of problems in dealing with life. In a similar fashion, allowing a feeling of shame in conjunction with past sin will do the same. A focus on a something in the past, such as a moral failure, that you have asked forgiveness for from God will also magnify disappointments. Failing to accept God’s grace in Christ for past sin can render you stuck and frozen, unable to move forward in confidence in current day.
Fail to Trust God’s Story
The story God is writing is filled with twists, turns, ups, downs, and all sorts of crazy moments it seems like. But there is no better story being written. And you get to be an active and important part of it! It is challenging when you are seeking God, asking in prayer and it still doesn’t seem like He is responding. That is where that whole faith thing comes in. When your faith is on tenuous ground because you aren’t trusting God and His plan, disappointments that show up can cause questions. When you are trusting God fully you see that failure isn’t an end, or that somehow God is absent. Trusting God and His plan allows you to see how a momentary disappointment is a blessing as God prepares you for what He has in the future. Failing to trust puts a gap in the story and leaves you feeling lost.
Disappointments are not and should not be fatal to your faith. A momentary failure is a wonderful growth and learning opportunity. It takes time to learn to deal with disappointments in ways that bring a healthier understand of life. Each time you find yourself facing a disappointment, whether big or small, begin with asking yourself what is one thing you can learn from it. Take time to run through the above checklist and make sure there isn’t something standing in the way of growth.