Rejoicing in Disappointment

*I wrote this in December of 2016. Since then, I have emerged out of this season of disappointment, but these truths remain a rock solid comfort.

Rejoice.

That’s a command. That is an imperative statement.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice!” Philippians 4:4

For the past several months I have been in a season of disappointment. I’m not talking about sadness. I’m not talking about a big loss or a tragedy that strikes hard and breaks your heart and shatters you. I’m not talking about crying myself to sleep at night and feeling sadness in the depths of my stomach. I have felt that, too; don’t get me wrong. I have been in the midst of deep sadness. But I can deal with sad. I have had seasons of immense loss and debilitating sadness in which I could see clearly what God was doing in me and where He was, and so I knew it was good. My joy was increasing because I was getting to know Jesus—who he is, how he completes me, his steadfastness, his goodness, his faithfulness. In the midst of real, raw sadness I learned joy and trust.

Disappointment is not the same battle. This season of disappointment has not been marked by one particular loss. It has not revolved around a tragedy, or really even any huge problem. It has been marked by a seemingly endless flow of little frustrations in which I can’t see God at all. I feel like I can’t catch a break. The things I thought were going to be good, have fallen through. A semester I expected to be the beginning of simplicity and wholeness has ushered in the deepest and most frightening anxiety I have ever experienced. I have struggled in relationships. I have struggled in academics. I have struggled in coming to terms with my past and myself—more accurately, the relationship between the two, and how my past has shaped me, my fears, and my insecurities. I have felt the most real sense of loneliness I have ever felt when I expected that my feelings of loneliness were over. Communities I once felt safe in, I feel like a foreigner in now. A course schedule I was looking forward to quickly became a 16 week long pattern of me feeling dread every Sunday evening for the week ahead. And so on… Disappointment.

See, nothing here has happened that would leave me devastated. Struggling in a class and getting in a fight with my friend doesn’t call for mourning and grieving the way a death in the family would. This is not sadness. This is not tragedy. This is disappointment. This is being brought low- not because of devastating loss, but because of nothing going how I expected it to. It’s not as simple as “I feel like things aren’t going my way.” I feel like things aren’t going the way they should be going. I feel like somewhere along the line, the train derailed and my life has become something it was never supposed to be. I have found myself literally thinking back as far as I can, like when you lose your wallet and retrace your steps, to find the starting point of where things started to change. When did the pattern start of little things disappointing me, which has grown to the point that now I feel like a stranger in my own life? And more importantly, where is God in all this? Doesn’t he see how tired I am? How wrung out?

I’m not leading up to some nice, poignant revelation of what I’ve learned through this dry season. I am, however, leading up to a recitation of what I have had to remind myself.

There are certain things about who God is that can be held up against any conflict or emotion and absolutely diminish it. I do not know what God is doing in my life right now. I don’t know why He sees it as good for me to be struggling, spiritually dry, frustrated, and disappointed in almost every facet of life right now. But here’s what I do know.

Whatever He is doing, it is good and for me.

“And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Because I am in Christ, I can know and trust that everything God is doing in my life right now is good. He is in it. He is involved. He is sovereign. He is still the one ruling over my life even when I cannot see it. Even when I can’t fathom what in the world he’s doing. Even when I feel like I’m not growing, not seeing him. Even when I’m confused. Hurt. Disappointed. It is good. And it is for me.

I also know that God has already done the one thing I really need.

He has made a way for me to live eternally in relationship with him by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man (Rom. 8:3) to die the death I deserved and raise again from the dead. I know that Jesus is the final argument. Eternity is the end game. And because of that—because God showed his love for me in that way, because he did not even spare His own Son (Rom. 8:32), my faith is steadfast. Measure up relational conflict and anxiety and loneliness to Jesus on the cross, and they fall away. Hebrews 4:14 says “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” So, because Jesus interceded for us, we can hold tightly to our faith. Another translation says “unswervingly.” Because Jesus showed love in the greatest way possible, I can stay steadfast. I can trust that through disappointment, he loves me and he is good to me.

And I know that through whatever I am feeling God is my comforter and strength.

One of my favorite verses, Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

No matter the depths of my sinful state, my Creator delights in me! He is glad when he sees me. And his love quiets my restless, anxious heart.

I am disappointed by my disappointment. I can’t wait to come out of this season. I want to see what God is doing in me and where he is going to bring me next. But, while I am here, I will rejoice. I will rejoice because God is doing things for my good, because Jesus already did what I need, and because God in his love quiets and stills my heart. I will rejoice even though I am disappointed. I will rejoice, and I will remember that he is good.