Finding Hope in Disappointment: Trusting God's Plan

In life, when you have dreams or thoughts about what you would like to do or who you would like to be or how you think things were going to work out that they are not, what do you do next? We're looking together at the fact that we are made to count, that we are designed to have an impact. [00:00:26]

I was thinking about a character in the Bible that I had never really noticed before. This is in the very beginning of the book of Acts when the disciples are gathered together, and of course, the crucifixion is the great disappointment, which then becomes the great opportunity for hope. [00:01:39]

They prayed about it and they decided they would select between two different people, and one of them they say was Joseph who was also known as Barsabbas, who was also called Justice, and then the other one was Matthias. Now the first one is kind of striking because he gets three names. [00:02:11]

He had to bear rejection, not being chosen with grace. In some ways, in the early church, he would have been the first person to be deeply disappointed in his dreams, and that's something that occurs to every human being. I was thinking about in The Beatles there was a drummer, I think his name was Pete Best. [00:03:34]

Ignatius of Loyola found his calling to follow Jesus and have an enormous impact on the world out of deep disappointment, out of both humiliating loss on the battlefield and then physical disfigurement, disappointment in what he thought he was going to be, and out of that came the discovery that God had another call on his life. [00:04:06]

Frank Laubach had desperately wanted to become the president of an educational institution and he lost by one vote, and ironically he was one of the people that voted, and out of politeness, he voted for the other candidate, and his own vote was the vote by which he lost, and yet he ended up finding God through that. [00:04:36]

We all experience deep disappointment and a deep sense of confusion, and the ultimate expression of this is when Jesus is on the cross and he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He enters into God-forsakenness. [00:05:15]

The need for people within the church to be able to express lament, which is what Jesus was doing. We are so often chirping and saccharine, and when human pain and disappointment gets treated in superficial ways, it creates even more pain. [00:06:23]

Despair is not simply saying that the outcome I wanted will not happen; it's saying that the actions that I take do not matter, so I don't have to carry on with my duty. I can give in to whatever impulse or the desire to quit that I want to. [00:09:06]

Gandalf says despair is only for those who can see clearly through to the end, and we cannot see clearly through to the end, therefore we cannot despair. Therefore, we cling to the hope of the scriptures even though what it is that I most hope will happen appears quite bleak to me. [00:09:21]

People who are wise spiritually persevere not only out of pride, integrity, and commitment to their values; they persevere because they are all at once trusting, optimistic, foolish, and humble enough to hope and expect that the seeds of their efforts will blossom in times, ways, and places that they can neither predict nor control. [00:10:03]

We embrace all of the pain and confusion and mystery and unknowing of life. We look at our world and we are not saccharine, and we're not chirping, and we are not triumphalistic, and we do not pretend to understand or believe more than we do, but we do not yet see clearly all the way to the end, therefore we do not despair. [00:10:56]