Unravelling Disappointment

One thing you’re sure to come across in this adulting journey is disappointment. God recently helped me understand how I (often) end up disappointed and I’d like to unpack it to save you some further heartbreak too.

 

I don’t think I need to explain what disappointment is. If you’re old enough to read this, I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced it on more than one occasion. However, for the purpose of the understanding God gave me, we’ll define it. Simply put, disappointment is a feeling of sadness caused by expectations going unfulfilled. If unmet expectations are the root of disappointment, we must consider what informs our expectations to deal with said disappointment.

 

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things.”

Ecclesiastes 11:5

 

If we are to escape disappointment, we must acknowledge the limitation of our knowledge. This is because what we know is what informs our expectations. When we think we know what needs to happen, we are vulnerable to disappointment the moment what we expect doesn’t happen. When I think I know the path of my life - that after school, is a job, then marriage and children – I’m left disappointed when I don’t get the job or get it only to lose it. I’m shattered when the marriage simply doesn’t happen. Or say I do get married, but when it proves difficult to conceive, I’m again left heartbroken because marriage is for having children, right?

 

We end up so disappointed with our lives because we think we know what they’re supposed to look like. We even learn to conceal our disappointment when we have nowhere to place it. We clothe it in a fake sense of contentment like the Shunamite woman who when given the opportunity to ask claimed she was satisfied. When Elisha insists and prophesies that she’ll have a son in a year’s time, it is revealed that disappointment was the reason why she didn’t ask for anything. She’s so held back by fear of disappointment (probably because she’s experienced it so much), instead of responding with ‘May it be to me as you have said’ like Mary, she objects: ‘No, my lord, don’t mislead your servant, O man of God!’ Through her story, we see how disappointment and fear of it can have us passing up on opportunities and declining what is rightfully ours.

 

We don’t know it all. Thinking we do is what invites disappointment into our lives. Cleopas and his friend thought they knew why Jesus had come (to save Israel) and were so disappointed when he died instead. Jesus points out the limitation of their knowledge which was the root of their expectation and ultimate disappointment. He says “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Basically, he says ‘death was part of the plan too’. The next verse explains “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

 

We must accept that we do not know everything if we are to remain hopeful in all circumstances. We must be like Ezekiel who when asked if dry bones could be revived to life simply said “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3). We must challenge ourselves to not look to the world and the lives of others as reference for what we ought to expect. We must look to God and God alone who knows the plans He has for us. We must stay long at Jesus’ feet like Mary asking Him our why’s, our how’s and our when’s iinstead of assuming we know.

 

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” Jeremiah 33:3

 

We will kiss disappointment goodbye the day we master believing that we don’t know but God does. When we’ll trust that even the most perplexing situations are clear as day to Him. When we’ll be confident that absolutely nothing can hinder his plan for our lives.

 

“…Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23