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 DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD

1 Peter 4:12-14

“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in His suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory when it is revealed to all the world. If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.”

James 1:2-4

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

It seems that we sometimes forget that we live in a broken world. We get destabilized when things don’t go the way we want them to. We have strange expectations that because we belong to Jesus Christ life should not be that difficult. It’s as if we have forgotten that we were born into a world that is at war, a spiritual war much more insidious than any physical conflict where the stakes are eternal in nature. You will have trouble in life simply because you belong to Jesus Christ. Satan and all the forces of spiritual darkness hate you because the Kingdom of God is at work in you. The power of Jesus’ resurrection at work in you is a major threat the devils’ intentions to deceive humanity and keep them from the Love of God

We also seem to forget that, in being united to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is now living in us to reproduce the character of Jesus, to conform us to His Image. Folks, that means we are in store for ongoing and radically drastic changes in how we think and act. When we affirm that Jesus Christ is Lord, that means that we are not. And even more, we must embrace the fact that the Life we have been given to live is not one we innately know how to walk in. We are utterly dependent upon the Holy Spirit to renew our minds, transform our lives and lead us daily into how to live as children of God.

It seems that we unconsciously hold onto a pagan ideology that torques our view of God. Satan wants to encourage that kind of thinking. It goes like this. IF I am doing all the things a follower of Jesus Christ is called to do, like prayer, Bible study, worship with other believers, Christian fellowship, and the like, then my life should be devoid of conflict. In paganistic terms, if I have done what God asks of me, then I have made Him obligated to make life work as I want it to. It is a satanic scam to believe that following Jesus Christ is some sort of quid-pro-quo kind of deal.

Our disappointment with God is rooted in that subtly nuanced mindset. We forget that sorrow and pain, difficulty and even death have been part of human experience ever since Adam and Eve rebelled against God. Ever since they believed the lie that they could make human life work without any reference to God.

Difficulties in life are a kind of pointed confirmation that we need something more than human effort and ingenuity to mend what is broken in ourselves. Being broken, we can’t fix ourselves. We need a Savior who can rescue, redeem, and deliver us, restoring life to what God intended.

Just as it takes time for a new-born baby to grow into a toddler, a youngster, a teen and into adulthood, it will take time stumbling, falling, getting up and learning to walk and run as followers of Jesus Christ. The race that is set before us is one of utter dependence upon the One upon Whom our faith depends from start to finish.

We can always ask the Lord Jesus, “Why is this happening?” He wants us to learn in the struggles. Sometimes it is simply to help us learn to endure so that we do not falter in trusting Him when the “wind and waves” become furious. Trials come to make us more reliant on the One who keeps us. Our faith is strengthened even as muscles are strengthened by working out at the gym.

James 1:5-8

“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.”

All we must do is read through the pages of Scripture and see that the lives of those who followed the Lord were anything but easy. But in reading about those saints who have gone before, we see the consistency of God’s faithfulness and power enabling them to walk in the Spirit. His promise to us is the same, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “Nothing can separate you from the Love of God…nothing in ALL creation” can ever separate you from His Love, His Life, His Presence, His Power and all His promises. Even if…and when…you feel disappointed, you can bring even that to Him and give it to Him. He doesn’t get upset when we don’t get it.

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