Disappointment is part of life.
I once told myself that I can only be disappointed if I have expectations. Some people don’t think you should have expectations, and then you won’t be disappointed.
But I eventually learned that this is backward thinking. I think it is fair, reasonable, and perfectly sane to have expectations, and that it is cynical, cowardly, and pessimistic, even fatalistic, to decide to have no expectations in order to avoid disappointment.
In fact, I submit that it is not possible to have no expectations.
Here are some scenarios which depict varying degrees of probability, and I leave it to you to decide if you would rather not have expectations in each scenario so that you might skip the disappointment.
What if…
–> you expected your chair to hold you, but it broke under your weight and you fell down.
–> you expected a dollar raise in your paycheck, but you only got fifty cents.
–> your contractor built you a new home, but at the first big rain, you discovered leaks in three rooms.
–> you expected your lungs to automatically draw in the air, but they suddenly would not work unless you consciously directed each breath as an act of your will.
–> you thought gravity was going to hold you to the ground as you skipped over a mud puddle, but instead you floated up and up and up until you could not catch a tree limb or anything else to help you get back to earth.
Some of these examples are silly, but they make my point; expectations are far more common in our daily experience than we realize.
Even Jehovah God has expectations. Does this mean He is in for a disappointment, too?
God created us to have fellowship with Him. God breathed His breath into man, and man became a living being. The Psalmist wrote the following passage about God’s intention for man:
“ (4) What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? (5) For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. (6) You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, (7) All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, (8) The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.” Psalms 8:4-8
But Adam and Eve disobeyed the very One they were created to have fellowship with, and their dominion passed to Satan, the prince of this world.
God didn’t waste any time moping, though He surely did express His dissatisfaction with the actions of our first parents.
He didn’t allow what they had done to stop Him from His ultimate plan for mankind. Thus He sent His son, Yeshua Jesus, to come to earth, to live among mankind as a man, in order to reconcile us to Himself. Not only that, but He also made provision for a time when Satan will no longer be the prince of this world!
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the King to Whom all Peace Belongs, gave his life on the cross – an innocent man who took on the sins of the world so that through faith in his finished work, we may have everlasting life with Jehovah God, the King of the Universe.
So, when I think of disappointment, I think of God’s passion for turning what the enemy means for evil into good for those who love Him, and who are called according to His purposes.
It is then that I realize that disappointments are really opportunities and that through faith we can embrace every single one of them, submit them to our Heavenly Father, and He will turn them for our good.
In fact, we can expect it!
Pastora Cate Covert