William Miller a Baptist preacher played a vital role in the Second Great Awakening between 1831 and 1844 in the United States. Based on his study on the prophecy of Daniel and other prophetic portions of the Bible Miller calculated that Jesus would return to the earth sometime between March 1843 and March 1844. When Jesus did not return Millers followers experienced what came to be called as “the great disappointment”. Though Miller was a great Christian leader and very sincere in his study of the scripture, he developed a faulty expectation and died a very disappointed man because Jesus did not return according to Miller’s predictions. Disappointment is often defined as a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized; it’s a deep emotion felt when a strongly held expectation is not met or proved to be wrong.
Disappointment is a reality of life and nobody, I mean nobody is immune to; even great people go through a period of life when they are disappointed. Donald McCullough makes this great observation about some great men in our history “Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but broke down and wept because his troops were too exhausted to push on to India. Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law said, “I have accomplished nothing worthwhile in my life.”…Robert Louis Stevenson wrote words that continue to delight and enrich our lives, and yet what did he write for his epitaph? “Here lies one who meant well, who tried a little, and failed much.”
Disappointment is a deep emotion felt when a strongly held expectation is not met or proved to be wrong.
As a Christian leader, personally I have been disappointed many times in life. Of course many of my disappointments were because of my own failure to live up to my expectations or to my understanding of God’s expectations. On a long run I noticed that such kind of disappointment is Ok as long as we do not let the emotion carry us to a sense of legalism or depression. However, there are many occasions in my life when I was disappointed with people and situations around me. Even though I have very little control over people and situations around me, I realized that I have developed some expectations from people and when they fail to meet those expectations I am disappointed. Unfortunately disappointment is not just a short lived emotion; it has long term consequences if we do not handle it well. Maurice Seitter writes “Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” Whether our disappointment is based on proper/fair expectations or not (reasonable or not), it still hurts. It hurts because our hopes are not fulfilled and the perfect picture of future of which we dreamed is now beginning to shatter as both people and events did not turn out as expected.
“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” – Maurice Seitter
Jerry White in his essay ‘Disappointment: The trauma of unmet expectations’ writes “How many times in life have we been disappointed, thinking “If only God had…”? But God hadn’t, and we were disappointed. From the disappointment of not going to the circus as a child to the news of being turned down from a job, we have learned to tolerate disappointment, submerge it, and go on with life. But each disappointment hurts and leaves its impression on our emotional lives. Some disappointments leave deep, long term impressions on us. They are not easily passed off and forgotten. They lead to deeper complications and responses…Disappointments often turn to discouragement…then discouragement can turn into despair; and we see no hope at all for life issues turning out well. Finally, despair turns to deep depression, which affects our emotional wellbeing.”
John chapter 11 has a classic example of a person disappointed with God. Verse 21 reads “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died…” It is very obvious that Martha was disappointed that Jesus came late and probably she was mad at Jesus that he took so long to arrive. Since they sent a word to Jesus four days ago “Lord, the one you love is sick.” (Vs 3) and to add to her agony Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem (Vs 18). I really love the details John gives in this gospel about this incident. Martha had clear set of expectations from Jesus and since he did not meet her expectations she was deeply disappointed. As a human being all she could see was what should have happened or how Jesus could have avoided the tragedy, but what she could not foresee was what God was going to do.
The problem is not with God, the problem is with our faulty perception of God and our limited expectations. As Denis Waitley notes “Disappointment, defeat, and even apparent failure are in no way permanent conditions unless we choose to make them so.” Many times in life I think we are so blinded by the immediate happenings around us that we try to squeeze God into our limited expectations rather than letting God be God. As children of God let us not be so overwhelmed with disappointment that it turns into despair, let us focus on the big picture and put our trust in the one who surprised Martha with a miracle that is the talk of the town till this day in Bethany.
“Disappointment, defeat, and even apparent failure are in no way permanent conditions unless we choose to make them so.” – Denis Waitley
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
