Navigating Disappointment: A Biblical Journey

By Mary Ann Froehlich

Are you experiencing a season of disappointment? Have some of your plans, dreams, and goals failed to reach fulfillment? If you struggle with the challenges of disappointment, you are not alone.

Navigating Disappointment guides you on a biblical journey to discover what the scriptures teach about disappointment and explores practical ways to respond in the midst of pain and despair. The theme of disappointment can be traced throughout the Bible.

Froehlich writes books for people who trust God yet suffer. She offers a realistic approach grounded in scripture with no sugarcoating. If you found encouragement in Living with Thorns: When God Does Not Change Your Circumstances, this new follow-up book will comfort you when you wrestle with disappointment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456628727

Book preview

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: What Is Disappointment?

Chapter 2: Is Disappointment Biblical?

Chapter 3: More Bitter Disappointment in the Old Testament

Chapter 4: Do We Set Ourselves Up for Disappointment?

Chapter 5: Two Days of Grief

Chapter 6: Did Jesus or Paul Experience Disappointment?

Chapter 7: Jesus Waiting at the Well

Chapter 8: Is Planning Biblical?

Chapter 9: When Bitter Disappointment Leads to Disobedience

Chapter 10: When Disappointment Disappears

Chapter 11: Disappointed but Not Despaired

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy—the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

Eric Hoffer

Broken dreams, broken hearts, hopes unrealized should not be seen as emblems of shame, badges of failure. If anything, they are tokens of courage.

Harold Kushner

Chapter 1

What Is Disappointment?

I’m just disappointed. My life didn’t turn out as I hoped.

I’ve been hearing these words more often in recent years. They are almost whispered as if they reveal a private confession. People are careful with whom they share their disappointment, lest their trust in God be misunderstood or questioned. These mature followers of Jesus Christ do not harbor anger, bitterness, or resentment towards God. They do not blame God. They are not disappointed in God. He is the sole anchor they cling to during life’s storms, whether they be inconvenient drizzles or battering hurricanes.

These believers are simply . . . disappointed. Their hopes have been derailed. They believed they were following God in the direction He was leading them, only to reach a dead-end. Their plans were consistent with scripture and girded with prayer, so what happened?

I know many people whose careers, marriages, adult children, parent or sibling relationships, health, or financial security didn’t turn out as they hoped or planned. The death of a dream is hard to accept. Most people live with at least one major disappointment in life. If this has never been your experience, then perhaps this book is not for you—unless you want to help someone who is reeling from disappointment.

Disappointment can glean a bad reputation. It might remind you of a whining child on the verge of a tantrum who did not get his or her way. Maybe when you were struggling, someone harshly confronted you, So you’re disappointed? Get over it. Life is hard and rarely turns out as we like. That’s reality. Stop your whining. That boot camp pep talk only made you feel worse. Snap out of it is not God’s biblical remedy.

Poor me . . . Woe is me are the last words you want to be associated with, lest people think of you as a chronic complainer. So you keep your pain hidden in a private place. But disappointment is as much a statement of fact as an emotional response. Disappointment is defined as sadness when our expectations, hopes, dreams, or plans go unfulfilled. It has the element of an unwelcome surprise. We may feel blindsided.

Dis – appointment literally means a canceled appointment.

Proverbs 13:12 states: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life (NIV). The Message translates hope deferred as unrelenting disappointment. A close cousin of disappointment in scripture is disheartened.

Who has not experienced the heartache of deferred hope? If you have not had a dream or hope squashed, or a plan that went awry, then you are a rare individual. I also question what you have risked in life because we are called to risk everything to follow Jesus.

Our culture adds to the pain by equating a failed plan with being a failure. Intellectually we realize that setbacks and disappointments chisel our character, which provide strength training to build our spiritual muscle. We recognize the difference between holy disappointment, emanating from God’s purpose, and earthly disappointment. But living in a prolonged state of unfulfilled plans seems to attract Job’s friends who are quick to point out that the path we’re on is obviously not working so we must be the source of the problem.

If you are experiencing a season of disappointment, perhaps even bitter disappointment, you are not alone. Disappointment may not be a popular topic for inspirational sermons, but it is a central theme throughout scripture. The Bible is a book about God meeting people in their disappointment.

Plenty of hand-holding books have been published about disappointment, especially disappointment in God. The biblical journey we are about to embark on together offers a more practical, honest approach. Only when we come to understand what God’s word teaches us about disappointment can we navigate its pitfalls. This book is filled with questions to help guide you through the process. What are the disappointments you wrestle with? What does scripture say about disappointment? Do we set ourselves up for disappointment? If life is filled with disappointments, should we bother to dream or plan? Should we expect anything from God? Does scripture offer us antidotes for disappointment?

This book builds upon the material presented in Living with Thorns: When God Does Not Change Your Circumstances, which addressed permanent types of disappointment and tragedy. Navigating Disappointment adds a twist, exploring when God does change our circumstances and well-laid plans, just not how we would choose. I’ve observed that tragic loss is more devastating than most life disappointments, but one’s community of family and friends is usually quick to offer support and comfort. In the midst of unimaginable pain, grievers are surrounded by people who love and protect them. In contrast, facing other types of disappointment can be a lonely road to travel. People don’t rally in the same way.

Be warned. Our scriptural journey in this book will not erase your past or current disappointments nor prevent future ones. But you may be surprised to learn that God knows how you feel when your ideal hopes and plans go awry. Scripture teaches that God feels passionate emotion and we were created in His image. God experiences love, joy, delight, sorrow, anger, jealousy, and disappointment, and Jesus exhibited this spectrum of emotions while on earth.

God Understands Our Disappointment

People who are disappointed in the path their adult children have chosen will be comforted to know that God understands how they feel. We need only read the opening chapters to the Bible to enter disappointment territory. In the beautiful world that God created, He planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. (Genesis 2:8) By the end of Genesis chapter three, God has expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and banished them (Genesis 3:24). Other translations state that God drove them from the garden due to their disobedience and lack of trust in Him. Note that God did not gently request that they leave. Adam and Eve were driven out of the paradise God had created for His children.

Adam and Eve did not behave as God planned and hoped they would. The rest of the Bible and the core of our redemptive faith are rooted in God’s