Is it ok to feel disappointed by God?
Proverbs 23:18
Have you ever been disappointed? Chances are if you’re human (and not a robot) you’ve experienced some form of disappointment in your life.
Someone in your life may have let you down or maybe didn’t get that job/ house that you wanted. In whatever form or fashion it comes, it’s common across all of humanity that NO ONE likes to be disappointed.
But what if the disappointment comes from somewhere you would have never expected it. What if you’re disappointed by God and you feel that He’s let you down? You may be thinking “Am I the only one who feels like God has let me down?” But you’re not alone, many Christians feel this way.
Godly Disappointment?
Why do we feel disappointed by God in the first place? I’d like to propose a theory:
When expectations don’t meet reality disappointment arises.
Let’s think about that for a moment. Let’s say you expected God to fix your marriage.
You pray fervently about your situation and you believe with all your heart that God is going to work things out. But months and years pass and nothing changes.
You’ve done all you can, you’ve gone all the Christian marriage counseling sessions and still, nothing changes. Then one day your husband asks for a divorce and your heart sinks.
What is God doing? You expect God to work things out and He didn’t and now you’re disappointed. Your expectation didn’t match your reality.
Is it ok to feel disappointed by God?
Is it ok to feel disappointed by God? I would say yes. Why? Well because disappointment is an emotion.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary disappointment is ‘unhappiness from the failure of something hoped for or expected to happen.’
God created us with emotions. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:26:
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Ephesians 4:26
Emotions aren’t the problem, it’s what we do with them that matters.
We feel happy or sad and we definitely can feel disappointment when we expect God to do something and He doesn’t.
God’s Plan
So why does God allow disappointment in our Christian journey? Why would God let us down?
God sees beyond what we can see. He can see the past, present and future all at once. He has a specific plan for each of our lives and sometimes He has to disappoint us in one area of our lives in order to bring victory later on.
We have to remember that God doesn’t always do things the way we expect Him to.
He doesn’t always tell us what He’s doing either and that’s where trust and faith come in.
Our verse of focus says:
For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. Proverbs 23:18
God has an end in sight despite our disappointment. His plan is sure to come to my past and it is set up for our good (Roman’s 8:28).
A lot of times we rationalize things in our head. We plan out how and when God should solve our problems. We try to do God’s job for Him.
We pray and pray and pray for things that don’t line up with God’s will for our lives and then we are disappointed when God doesn’t supply what we asked for.
Related Post: 5 Ways to Know God’s Will for Your Life
Joseph’s Life
I like to look at Joseph’s life as an example of great and continuous disappointment.
If you never read Joseph’s story (Genesis 37-45) and you didn’t know the ending, you would conclude that Joseph was being treated unfairly by God.
Just to recap here’s a few horrible things that happened to Joseph:
- He was hated by his brothers
- Stripped of his clothes and thrown in a pit
- Sold into slavery
- Wrongly accused and was thrown into prison
But when we read the end of Joseph’s story, we see God’s plan being fulfilled. We see that God was setting up Joseph to be a powerful ruler and God had placed him exactly where he needed to be, even though his situations were very disappointing.
We serve a mysterious God
Sometimes we are disappointed by God’s process. He may provide something only to then take it away or He may open a door only to close and we wonder why God would put us through all of this ‘unnecessary’ stress.
But I have learned that there is a lesson to every disappointment.
When I thought God was letting me down I soon found out that that disappointment was a stepping stone for later success.
He was letting me down so He could set me up for a greater purpose.
Through those times I learned how to trust in God’s timing and how to follow His will rather than mine.
My faith grew because I began to realize that while God’s plan may seem illogical to me, He ALWAYS knows what He’s doing and everything that happens in your life is ordained and purposed.
Even when things are horrible or when our poor decisions have landed us in tough situations, God is working in the background to deliver you and your victory WILL come.
Trust the process
I’ve been there. I’ve been at the place where I was so sure that God was going to work things out a certain way and He didn’t.
I’ve been at the point where I outright refused to pray or study my Bible because I was soooo disappointed with God.
Sometimes we’re too broken to realize that God still loves us.
But if we could only read the end of our stories, we would see that God has an expected end.
An end where we rise above all of our challenges and brokenness, and we emerge as shining lights for His kingdom.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11
Prayer for today:
Dear Heavenly Father,
I praise you, for being a personal and loving God. I thank you for every disappointment for I know that they are stepping stones for success. Give me OH Lord the strength to trust you; help me to remember that you’re still writing my story and everything is going to work out for good in the end.
Amen.
