What does all of this mean for me?

It’s not disappointments that hold us back. It’s the perception of the disappointments. It’s not necessarily the pain that holds us back. It’s how we feel about the pain. Even though we’re all going to face difficulties, God is there right beside us helping to rejoice and experience inner joy in the midst of the junk.

Pain will happen but we don’t have to wallow in misery. You can’t side-step pain but you can miss out on God’s perspective of suffering, pain or disappointments – even in the midst of pain and disappointment.

3) Disappointment loosens our grip on unimportant things in life.

James 1 [2] Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, [3] because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. [4] Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Romans 5 [3] Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; [4] perseverance, character; and character, hope. [5] And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

When disappointment comes, the things that are of little value in life suddenly don’t matter anymore. We find ourselves clinging tightly to the things that really matter: our relationships with God and each other.

2) Re-focus on the ultimate goal in life: Christlikeness.

Job 42 [5] I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. [6] I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.

Job gained deeper spiritual understanding. He had the eyes of a renewed faith. He had a deeper insight into God’s character. Comparing this new awareness of God with his previous experience is like comparing seeing with hearing. Christianity is meant to be a personal relationship with God in which we grow closer to Him. Being humbled through suffering is meant to draw us closer to Him. When you are flat on your back it’s easier to look up! What else can you do!

Romans 8 [28] And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into His plans.

All things work together for good — not necessairly for pleasure, comfort, prosperity, health, or joy, but for good. It’s the perspective of the temporary vs. the eternal. How can Paul say that he would rather glory in his bad health? This is what kept him humble so that God could use him. He knew that his own pride would have kept him out of touch with God’s eternal purpose for him. We must look at suffering through the eyes of perspective

2 Corinthians 12 [10] Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about the thorn, and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong – the less I have, the more I depend on Him.

So the good has to do with molding me into being more like Christ. It’s only then that I will understand the spiritual journey that I began more fully. All things work together for the one good purpose of being made more like Christ. It takes a variety of experiences to cause this to happen. Some of those experiences include suffering. A diamond has to be cut to bring out its beauty. Gold must be refined to bring out its purity. The vine must be pruned to bear more fruit. Clay needs to be molded before it becomes a magnificent work of art. In the same way the child of God must be cut, refined, pruned and molded to become more like Christ. God has not promised to make us totally comfortable, but He has determined to make us conformable.

Beware of falling into the trap of cut and dried theologies that reduce the ways of God to a manageable formula that keeps life safe and comfortable. That’s not always God’s plan for us! Look for God’s higher purpose in your life. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

1) Gain a fresh awareness that God is beside us in our disappointments.

Job 13 [15] Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.

Job 42 [1] Then Job replied to the LORD: [2] “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. [3] You asked, “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance? It is I and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.”

In the end, even though he didn’t have all of the answers, Job came to the realization that God was right beside him the whole time.

Deut. 31 [6] Be strong! Be courageous! Do not be afraid of them! For the Lord your God will be with you. He will never fail you nor forsake you.

That’s not our perspective when disappointment first hits us. Let’s face it. Most of us feel that being a Christian should somewhat EXCUSE us from trials and sufferings. Now, if someone were to ask us we would probably say that we realize that sufferings may come, but that we don’t think of them as really necessary in our lives. We think of sufferings as signs that something is wrong with us. After all, if we stay strong in our relationship with God, things should go well. And, if we have trouble, we feel like Christianity doesn’t really work after all. Wrong perspective!

Listen, this is the pivotal point where disappointment, failed dreams or suffering can either bury you or raise you up – make you bitter or better. God never promises a rose garden in this life – but He did promise that He would see us through life … that He would do life BESIDE us, not BEHIND us or IN FRONT of us … right BESIDE us … guiding us!

THE HUMPTY DUMPTY SYNDROME
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Can you identify with Humpty Dumpty? Have you taken a great fall lately? Does it seem like your brokenness is beyond repair? But as Jesus sees us in our distress, He is not a casual observer. He is in the midst of our suffering – He feels it, He can identify with it, He experienced it Himself. After we have been broken by the hard realities of doing life, like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the King’s men” may not be able to us back together again but the real King of the Universe can …

Hebrews 4 [15] This High Priest [Jesus Christ] of ours understands our weaknesses since He had the same temptations we do, though He never once gave way to them and sinned.

A love that does not suffer with the suffering of people is not love at all. We need to remember that God is not far off some where. He has shed tears too. He is right in the midst of our pain.

Isaiah 41 [10] Fear not for I am with you I will help you.

Sometimes we just don’t have an answers. But, in reality and from God’s perspective, we don’t really need to know why – we just need to know Who. Job felt the same way He didn’t know the answers as to why he went through what he did – but he knew the One who had the answers: God.

What do we do when life doesn’t turn out like we planned it to? No matter what our age or stage in life, we all have asked this type of question at some time … I think God DOES have some things to say about handling disappointments and suffering in life.

Can we expect any comfort at all when our questions go unanswered? YES!

Dealing with disappointments: It’s all about perspective. Get God’s perspective on living life to help you handle disappointments.

Disappointment wears many masks. It may take the form of a lost job, a broken relationship, the death of a loved one, or even bad news during a routine checkup at the doctor’s office. But one thing is usually sure. To the victim of suffering it doesn’t make sense. You have to live in ambiguity. Everything you though that you knew about life, faith, and God seems irrelevant when you’re in pain. As life around you grinds to a halt … you ask the question … God why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? What’s wrong with me? God why are you doing this to me?

It stands alone when compared to other sacred writings

No other sacred text alludes to God, the loving all-powerful and infinite Creator, coming down to earth to live in human form and become to personally redeem us. This Redeemer, Jesus Christ, makes a way for all of us to have a more and better life. Even today, anyone who recognizes Jesus Christ and trusts him alone to restore them is completely transformed.

There is no other alleged divine book or writing that has a story like this or has the credentials that the Bible has. The more you read the Bible the more you realize that it’s really a window to the reality of the world we live in.

It’s proven to be God’s words to us through prophecy.

Many religious books claim to be divinely inspired, but only the Bible has evidence of supernatural confirmation. We have seen that Jesus, being God incarnate, affirms the inspiration of the Bible. One of the greatest proofs of the accuracy and trustworthiness of the Bible are the 2,000 or so prophecies that have already been fulfilled. It’s one of the best proofs that the Bible is supernatural or the words of God to us. But, how in the world would any human do that and come completely true often right down to the details. The biblical authors made hundreds of specific prophecies of future events that have happened exactly as predicted. No book in history can compare to the Bible when it comes to the fulfillment of prophecy.

Here are some examples. Ezekiel predicted the destruction of Tyre well before it happened. He even gave some specific things to verify in his prophecy that the city would be destroyed, many nations would fight against her, the debris of the city would be thrown into the ocean, the city would never be found again, and fishermen would come there to lay their nets.

King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the mainland city of Tyre and in 333 B.C. Alexander the Great laid siege to the city completely destroyed the part of the city that was an island. Today, Tyre is a small fishing town where fishing boats come to rest and fisherman spread their nets. The great ancient city of Tyre to this day lies buried in ruins exactly as prophesied. If we were to calculate the odds of this event happening by chance, the figures would be astronomical. No, it was not by coincidence.

For example, there are nearly 300 prophecies made about Jesus in the Old Testament, prophecies such as His place of birth, how he would die, His rejection by the nation of Israel, and so on. All these prophecies were made hundreds of years before Jesus ever came to earth. Because of the accuracy of the prophecies, many skeptics have believed that they must have been written after A.D. 70 – after the birth and death of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. Skeptics have even tried to deny that they are even prophecies. But you can’t argue with the evidence that the biblical writings happened well before the predicted events occurred.

Here’s a really wild example. One of the most amazing prophecies predicted when Jesus would die on the cross some 500 years before it happened. It’s in Daniel 9:25-26. Look at Luke 19:38-42 === “… if only you had known that on this day …” v. 42. Jesus was making a reference to Daniel ch. 9 – “The Anointed One” (i.e., the Messiah) will come and in Luke 19:44 is says that they did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them. Jesus was saying to the people – if you would have known the prophecy in Daniel 9 – you would be sitting here waiting for me to come. Some 500 years before the event, Daniel said it would happen.

Another prophecy is from Psalm 22 which predicts the crucifixion of the Messiah, mentions how the Roman soldiers would cast lots for Jesus’ garment and it even talks about what the enemies of Jesus would say about him as he hung on the cross. Well, maybe ch. 22 in the book of Psalms was written after Jesus was crucified.

However, in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These scrolls contained the book of Isaiah, the book of the Psalms and other prophetic books. When dated, they were found to be written from 120 to 100 B.C., well before Jesus was born. It would have been an incredible accomplishment for Jesus to have fulfilled the numerous prophecies. Some say these prophecies were fulfilled by chance, but the odds against this would be exceptionally large. It would take more a greater leap of faith to believe in that chance happening than in the fact that Jesus is God and these prophecies are divinely inspired. The record of prophecy is thus evidence for the unique, supernatural origin of the Bible.

Maybe you’re thinking the disciples just simply read the O.T. and decided to fulfill these prophecies themselves. If that’s true then they were in on an elaborate hoax – the worst and most diabolic hoax the world has even known then. That means that they stole the body of Jesus and hid it somewhere then. And, to top it off not only did they know it was a lie, they died for that lie. Well, maybe you’re saying that’s no big deal because a lot of people have died for a lie. But, 11 of the 12 disciples died horrible deaths because of their faith in Jesus. Do you really think that they would have died horrible deaths for Jesus if they were in on a scam and they knew it was a lie? WHO WOULD DIE FOR A LIE THAT THEY KNEW WAS A LIE?

I want you to read along with me what Peter Stoner, a scientist in the area of mathematical probability wrote in his book SCIENCE SPEAKS THESE WORDS. “If we take just 8 of the 300 prophesies concerning Christ we will find the probability of them coming to pass is 10 to the 17th power.” Now stay with me. Stoner goes on to illustrate it this way. He said that if you took 10 to the 17th power silver dollars and spread them across the state of Texas, they would cover this great state two feet deep. Are you with me? He added that if you took one of the coins, marked the back of it, threw it in the mix, mixed them all with a giant mixer, then blindfolded someone, dropped him or her off from a helicopter with instructions to pick up only one coin, what would be the chance the marked silver dollar would be chosen? The same chance that Jesus would have had if He would have fulfilled only eight of the 300 prophecies. That is just eight. We are talking about something supernatural, something otherworldly, something that is inspired, something that separates this book from all other writings.

It’s validated by archaeology.

Archaeology attests to the historical reliability of the Bible. Over the last 100 years, there have been lots of Middle Eastern archaeological discoveries that have proven the Bible to be true and accurate in its historical descriptions. Nelson Glueck, a renowned Jewish archaeologist, states, “No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.” Dr. William Albright, who was probably the foremost authority in Middle East archaeology in his time, said this about the Bible: “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament. At this time, the number of archaeological discoveries that relate to the Bible number in the hundreds of thousands.” Albright wasn’t a Christian, he was an archaeologist.

Archaeology has verified numerous ancient sites, civilizations, and biblical characters whose existence were questioned by the academic world and often dismissed as myths. Biblical archaeology has silenced many critics as new discoveries support the facts of the Bible.

Here are a few examples of the historical accuracy of the Bible. Critics of the Bible said that the Hittite civilization that the Bible mentions never existed. According to the Bible, the Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. (Genesis 15:20, 2 Samuel 11, and 1 Kings 10:29). Prior to the late nineteenth century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible.

However, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologists in Turkey discovered a city which proved to be the capital of the Hittite empire. In the city they discovered a massive library of thousands of tablets. These tablets showed that the Hittite civilization actually existed.

Doubters of the Bible said that King David didn’t even exist. He was just a myth. But, in 1993, an archaeological team in Israel discovered an inscription on a stone-like table made by a King of Syria who was writing about his victories over the Israelites. And, take one guess whose name was on the inscription – King David! Just like the Bible says, David truly lived.

Skeptics also said that there as no such person as Caiaphas the High Priest during the time in Jesus. But, in 1990, they discovered the family tomb of Caiaphas with his name inscribed on an ossuary that belonged to him. It’s on display in Jerusalem so we have the guy’s bones who actually pronounced the death sentence on Jesus. Once again the Bible is validated.

Critics said that Pontius Pilate never existed until in 1961, a team doing excavation in Ceasarea found a huge stone with the name “Pontius Pilate” inscribed in Latin. The Bible is validated.

There is truth, there is love in those letters because they were God-breathed, God-given. The same cannot be said of other truth sources of other major world religions. We have a truth source backed up by history and archeology but the other major world religions don’t have that.

Maybe you’re thinking that doesn’t prove anything – it just shows us that the Bible is accurate historical but it doesn’t show that the Bible is actually the words of God, that it’s supernatural. There’s more though …

It wasn’t handed by word-of-mouth.

There are over 5,300 ancient manuscripts of the New Testament.

“There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good attestation as the New Testament.” F. F. Bruce, New Testament Greek Scholar

Some portions and fragments of the New Testament date back to the first century, just a couple of decades after it was written. One more time, God has supernaturally preserved His words to us.

Its amazing unity

The Bible was written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors in different places, under a variety of circumstances, and dealing with all kinds of issues. It’s amazing that it has such diversity and still has a unified theme: God’s restoration of human beings and all of creation. The writers address numerous controversial subjects yet contradictions never appear. The Bible is an incredible document.