Worship Service – Sunday, March 9, 2025
Many people in the Bible experienced disappointment, such as Moses coming down from the mountain and seeing the people worshiping idols after he’d been up there all that time. Or Jesus’ disappointment, which we talked about earlier this month, in the disciples when they couldn’t even sit with Him for one hour—for one lousy hour—while He was suffering. And Peter, how disappointed he was in himself when he told the Lord, “I will never deny you.” What happened? He denied Him three times. Disappointment is inevitable in our daily lives; it just comes with the territory. But how we cope with disappointments is often a defining moment in our lives.
When we experience disappointment, it can be a starting point for an open conversation with God, just as I had when I was deciding what to do with my mom and how disappointed I was in myself that I could no longer care for her at home. With God’s help through prayer and His divine grace, He can help us change the way we live and the choices we make.
We can start this during the Lenten season by forgiving ourselves when we are disappointed in ourselves. We can begin by letting go of the disappointments we have with others—tough one—and forgiving them—tougher one yet—because they didn’t live up to our standards. Disappointment is a natural response to difficulties we see in our lives. We can be like our biblical brothers and Jesus. When they experienced disappointments, they turned to God, let it go, and went on to accomplish great things.
When we are feeling disappointed and it threatens to overwhelm us, we need to put it in God’s hands. We need to remember that we have His love, grace, and wisdom to guide us through the disappointing times, as well as the good times. It reminds me of a song, “Count Your Blessings.” Here’s a few words from the first verse:
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Let us see our wealth not in terms of outward possessions, but in terms of spiritual faith, hope, and love.
Remember, the future is in God’s hands. We should never let life’s disappointments define us. As this Lenten season approaches, let us put on the symbolic sackcloth and ashes—which we did today—and take these 40 days to truly examine ourselves, our strengths, and our weaknesses. We might be surprised by what we find with God’s help.
Today, as I was getting ready for church, I found something that felt apropos to what I was just talking about. Sometimes, when life doesn’t go as we want it to, we go to God and blame Him.
“Hey God, you promised me!”
“I wouldn’t get mad,” God replies.
“Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today?”
“What do you mean?” God asks.
“Well, I woke up late.”
“Yes.”
“My car took forever to start.”
“Okay.”
“At lunch, they made my sandwich wrong and I had to wait.”
“All right.”
“On my way home, my phone went dead just as I picked it up on a call.”
“Yes.”
“And on top of it all, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my new foot massager and relax—but it wouldn’t work!”
“Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?”
God responds: “Hmm… Let me see. The angel of death was at your bed this morning, and I had to send one of my angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that.”
“Okay,” I reply.
God continues: “I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route who would have hit you if your car started right away.”
“Oh,” I say, now ashamed.
“The first person who made your sandwich today was sick,” God explains. “I didn’t want you to catch what they had because I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work.”
“Ooh,” I whisper.
“Your phone went dead because the person calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call,” God says kindly. “I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered.”
“I see,” I murmur.
“And that foot massager?” God adds. “It had a short circuit that would have knocked out all the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.”
“I’m sorry, God.”
“Don’t be sorry,” God replies gently. “Just learn to trust Me in all things—the good and the bad.”
“I will trust You, Lord,” I promise.
“And don’t doubt that My plan for your day is already better than your plan.”
“I won’t,” I vow humbly. “And let me just say—thank You for everything today.”
“You’re welcome, child,” God says with love. “It was just another day being your God, and I love looking after My children.”
So when things go bad, there’s a reason, right? And sometimes it’s always a good reason. Amen.
