Dealing With Disappointment

Today there are a lot of disappointed people in the area where I live.  They’re disappointed because of the outcome of the Super Bowl football game last night.  And they’re especially disappointed because of the way it came about and the real hope they had during the game that the outcome would be different.  If you watched the game, you know what I’m talking about.  We had it . . . we were so close . . . it seemed like it was going to happen . . . and then it was over.  Just like that – in the blink of an eye; and disappointment set in.

The hardest part about disappointment is that we feel hope let us down.  Whenever we have disappointments in life (real ones, not just football games), we feel worse because we got our hopes up.  We dared to hope, and what we hoped for didn’t happen.  Or it didn’t happen the way we hoped it would.  Something or someone let us down.  And lots of times it doesn’t take very long for disappointment to turn into discouragement.  We go from hope to disappointment to discouragement with lightning speed.

Life on this earth is full of ups and downs.  Some of them are as eternally unimportant as the outcome of the Super Bowl game; but others touch our hearts and souls on a deeper level.  How can we properly deal with disappointment so that we remain hopeful and avoid discouragement?  Fortunately, since many things about living have not changed since time began, the Bible can give us some help in this area.  By looking at what God says to us in his Word, we are able to choose a faith-filled response to life’s disappointments.

I am happy to know when I am disappointed what Psalm 22:5 tells me: that the Israelites in the Old Testament trusted in God and found out that he didn’t disappoint them.  I’m also glad to know what God promises in Isaiah 49:23: “. . . those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”  If my hope is directed in the right direction (hope in God), I can be sure that I will not be disappointed.  And if I am, I probably need to adjust my “hope focus”.  As Phil Keaggy suggested in a song many years ago, all I need to do is change the letter “d” to an “h” and I get a whole new concept: disappointment becomes His appointment! 

But let’s get real: regardless of how hard I try, I’m going to give in to disappointment sometimes.  I’m human, and I’m not always going to get it right.  So when disappointment comes, I need to keep it from turning into discouragement – because discouragement is the enemy’s playground and can lead me further away from walking by faith.  How do I do this?  Over and over in the Old Testament, God told his people that they could avoid discouragement by remembering that he was present with them.  Having God walking by my side in this life of faith is so much more important than having no disappointment.  Knowing that he is always with me helps me turn life’s disappointments back to hope, and Romans 5:5 can help me get this right: “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.”  I’m so thankful for God’s presence in my life . . . time to shake off my latest disappointment and focus my hope in the right direction.