Dealing with Disappointment
Listen, disappointments are going to happen. As long as we live, like Amazon, there will inevitably be things, seasons, people, and circumstances that deliver disappointment to our doorstep. Death and taxes are not the only guarantees that await us. Disappointments that disturb our peace and attempt to bully us are somewhere lurking in the background twiddling its thumbs plotting on how to take you down, take you out or make to make you ineffective.
Disappointments are guaranteed, but how you respond is optional. The scripture encourages us to consider disappointments as joy. The scripture states it like this: Now consider it joy when you face trials of all kinds. Now, whether you’re reasonable, logical, or creative brain, that math just doesn’t add up. How am I supposed to receive disappointment yet see it as joy? Disappointment does not feel good.
This is one of the scriptures that I believe encourages us to practice spiritual alchemy. Alchemy is the process of attempting to take base elements/various metals and transform them into gold. You and I have the opportunity to do the same when dealing with disappointment. We can allow disappointment to sit with us. We can allow it to take its natural course and cause us to become hot and bothered, frustrated, short tempered and unpleasant, down a path that will be hard to recover from——- or we can take the disappointment and transform it to gold, something valuable, something that will make an impact for good.
Remember Moses? We’ll just after he got Pharos consent to take the Israelites to the promised land everything seemed to be going as planned. But after walking for a few miles they begin to hear shouts and screams. They heard the battle horns of the Egyptian army coming as a flood to fight and conquer them. What they heard was the sound of disappointment. As they begin to walk forward in attempt to escape, they were confronted with more disappointment as they were staring into the Red Sea.
The people were disappointed. They began to cuss at Moses, asking him why in the heck did you bring us here. They lost faith in his ability to lead. The people were so disappointed that they were willing to go back into slavery rather than to think positive in the face of disappointment. Just as a sidebar between me and you: Don’t allow your disappointments cause you to be willing to settle for less than what God has called you to! Don’t allow your disappointment cause you to miss your appointment.
Just as frustration was settling into the heart and mind of Moses, God told Moses to perform some Alchemy. He told Moses to lift up your staff over the waters. And as he did that, the water shot up and separated and allowed the Israelites to cross over on dry ground.
Alex, get to the point: The reason why we often get so frustrated when we are confronted with disappointment is because we ask the question: What am I supposed to do? Next time disappointment arises, ask the question: God, what do you want to do. When this becomes our habitual nature as to how we handle disappointment, like Moses, God will give is the tools of transformation in our hands to be able to transform the basic element of disappointment to the miracle of Gold.
