The Disappointing Jesus?

Image: James Tissot / Brooklyn Museum

To disappoint is to fail to satisfy hopes or expectations. We are human, and therefore ignorant, blind, selfish. How shall we help feeling let down when God does not act according to our hopes? Many men in Scripture were disappointed, and cried out their complaints against God—Job, for one, in almost unbearably vivid language; and the psalmist, who again and again asked, “How long, O Lord” “Hath God forgotten to be gracious?”

Elisabeth Eliot died this week. Yet, as those who know her understand, she died to live again in the resurrection of our Lord. If you don't know who she is, I encourage you to root around and learn more about her. There are many books and articles by her and about her that you can access through the internet.

35 years ago, she wrote an extraordinary article in Christianity Today called "No Disappointment in Jesus?" I like this article because it refuses to paste a falsely cheery veneer on life. Life is full of disappointments, and for those who seek to live life informed by faith in Christ, those disappointments often spill over into your faith. Click on the link to read the article.

God can handle our disappointment, our frustration, our anger. God is no delicate flower who must be coddled and protected. He is the God who gets his hands dirty. He is the God who purposely left behind all the privileges of royalty (deity!) and abased himself to become human. He is the God who, for the sake of his people, walked intentionally into his own betrayal, torture, and humiliating execution. He has received the brunt of our disappointment -- the worst we can dish out.

He took our disappointment and transformed it. He didn't make it go away, but he made it into a way to repair our broken relationship with God.

We need not stuff our disappointment down and cover it up. We can offer it up to him. We may be surprised at what the can and will do with it once we give it up.

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