The Blessing of Disappointments

“LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure”

Psalm 16:5

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

St. Augustine, Confessions

In this day and age, to the average contemporary Christian, when we talk about disappointments, it usually means when we do not get something we need, want or feel is our due at the time or in the specific set of circumstances that we want it. Our understanding of the world is grand enough to accept that some times, these disappointments are a part of life, though we are quick to console ourselves that there is a silver lining in there somewhere.

Perhaps it is the incurable optimist within each of us or the doggedness of our self-centred beliefs or maybe just borrowing some theology from the movie The Sound of Music where the Mother Abbess says “Where the Lord closes the door, somewhere He opens the window”. The only really obvious fact is that we seem to need a way to deal with the fact that life doesn’t always go according to plan. The other alternatives are too difficult to deal with.

What if disappointments, even the very terrible kinds without any visible or deducible benefits are still somehow for our good? How do I mean? As creatures, we tend towards fixation, we are designed this way. Sometimes it is good, other times, what we choose to focus on becomes the object of our obsession or the substance of our addiction. This proclivity to seek “highs” is the main reason behind the huge disappointments in life!

God mercifully allows for us to be constantly disappointed for the singular reason that He will not allow us to be caught in the web of deception that anything apart from Him can truly satisfy us. Think about it…even in the course of daily life without the radically shattering events, things just almost seem built to let us down. The lovely movie ends, the well-prepared dinner is consumed, the romantic moment passes, the loved one dies. It just seems like we’re constantly moving from valley to valley after alternating peaks.

Why is this so? As I said earlier, we have been built specifically for this. God created us with a space that only He can fill; with needs that only He can meet. As a result, every time that we lose sight of this, we can expect life to be a series of disappointments as we try desperately to do for ourselves what only He can do for us. God-centredness is not merely an option for life; it is the only way available to us.

This is not all gloomy of course. God does intend for us to enjoy life and the things that come with it, but only when we are mindful that they are merely gifts that come to us from a gracious and ever loving Giver. Whenever something underwhelms, or doesn’t quite live up to the billing and the hype, rather than become somber, let this spur us to seek God, the only true source of our satisfaction. Instead of questioning whether God loves us or trying hard to seek out the next thrill or “fix”