This might touch a nerve, but in the spirit of transparency, I have to admit that I’ve been disappointed with God. Not just recently. This probably doesn’t apply to you, but I have a tendency to judge God based on what He has done for me. When things balance out in my favor, then God is good and “making all things work together for MY good.” When things don’t balance out in my favor, I become distant, anxious, and frustrated.
So, when we lost our daughter in 2020, my disappointment hit an all time high. I’ve struggled with God over this issue and many others over the past 3+ years. Disappointment is more than just a feeling of discouragement – disappointment typically brings with it a lot of pain. Pain leads to a lot of bad decisions if we don’t get it under control. We just want the pain to stop, so we do things that we might never do otherwise. We allow ourselves to go to places that can become overwhelming and dark – all in an attempt to escape the pain.
As I’ve been writing and blogging for the last 3 years, I’ve received many responses from people who have read or attempted to read what I’ve written. Most of the responses are encouraging, but there have been a few that have been accusatory or argumentative. Most of the time I just delete them and move on, but recently the Lord has begun to turn my heart toward these responses. I’m realizing that, true or not, people become disappointed with God out of seasons of intense pain. This pain shapes their belief. It leads some to deny the existence of the very God they are disappointed with. I’m finding that some of these people once walked with God, went to church, believed. Now, they’ve allowed the pain of their disappointment to move them into a place where they will yell and scream at the mention of a “good God.”
Timothy Keller once wrote, “If you say: I believed in God, I trusted God and He didn’t come through – You only trusted God to meet your agenda.”[1]
When things go wrong and disappointment seems to rule the day, we have to separate our circumstances from His goodness. There will be times and situations where it’s okay to say “God is good, but this is not.”
Expectations and faith can go hand in hand or they can run counter to each other. It all depends on where our expectations are placed. Are they placed in the outcome or are they placed in who He is?
You see, if our expectations are anchored in the outcome, we will be disappointed and lose faith when the outcome doesn’t match up with what we expected. God’s goodness will come into question, and we will be in danger of losing faith in Him. In Scripture, James tells us everything good is from the Father. In Him there is nothing evil. However, we can be tempted and deceived by the enemy. Our expectations can be misdirected and lured away from God’s plan and agenda. That is why it is so important to recognize the seasons we are in, that we have an enemy and that God is not him. God is good all the time, and that never changes, but our circumstances do.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 ESV)
So, if our expectations are anchored in who we know God to be, and He never changes, then regardless of the outcome we can take comfort in the knowledge God is good and every good thing comes from Him. Always. In every circumstance.
Bill Johnson, pastor and author of God is Good: He’s Better Than You Think, says, “We don’t have the capacity to exaggerate God’s goodness. We can distort it, or even misrepresent it, but we can never exaggerate it.” [2]
Before our daughter passed away, I had never experienced a loss that brought this much pain. I thought I had a decent understanding of grief. After all, I am a pastor and should know these things, right? Yet, I’ve actually been surprised by the depth of it. Just when I think I’ve gone as deep as I could, I discover another layer of pain, more gut-wrenching than before.
Not to be cliché, but it truly is like an onion; you pull another layer off, thinking you’re coming to the end, only to find many more layers—each one going deeper and becoming stronger, more pungent. Before long, your eyes are burning and tearing up, and you can barely see the way out.
More than three years later, as I write this, I realize I don’t cry as often as I used to. However, when I do, it’s just as deep and painful as that first day when I realized my baby girl was gone. My choices can be to forget Aly and avoid the pain, hoping it will go away; or carry her with me, remembering who she was and allowing that pain to transform me, make me better, and lead me down a new path with a different, but amazing end from what I imagined. However, in order to do that, I must also carry the pain and disappointment of the loss.
Layers. So many layers.
After reading this, you may come to the conclusion that Michelle and I have found victory over these areas in our lives. That would not be entirely true. While we are learning to walk victoriously through our grief, we still struggle and we still fail.
We are still dealing with the disappointment and grief of losing our daughter. We still struggle in our marriage and with our children. We still have dark days and weeks, and we have days where the darkness seems to win. That’s because it’s not always easy getting what is in your head to move into your heart, especially when the disappointment is so deep and painful. It takes time, and these measures are not overnight fixes. It requires a willingness to fail and the consistency and determination to get up and try again.
The key to everything is not to quit, but to stay the course.
However, this type of tenacity is not discovered the first time you fall down or are discouraged, and it’s not lost the first time you fail to immediately get back up. It’s after you get up repeatedly that an attitude of determination finds its footing in your life. This is why failure and disappointment are a significant and essential part of our growth. It’s on these things that God begins to build strength and character. It’s the “iron sharpening iron” principal. Its purpose is to make us “sharper.” However sometimes the sparks create fires that seem to burn our hopes to the ground.
Here’s the thing—God can, and does, use disappointment and grief in our lives to bring us to a place where we relinquish our constant struggle to take control of our surroundings. It’s often in that place of brokenness where God and His strength become our sole focus.
Hopefully, it’s in those moments when we begin to realize that disappointment and grief don’t have to be the enemy. I’m finding that love has no weight without grief. Grief IS “weighty.” If you allow it, it can pull you down to depths that have no light. You can get lost in the dark places, where the true enemy, the deceiver, the destroyer, finds his grip. There have been days when Michelle and I have stayed home, hurt and crying. There have also been days when we’ve celebrated, laughed, and remembered. Healing can emerge in the deep places as long as we keep our anchor in Christ. Michelle and I are learning to buoy our disappointment in His abundant and tangible grace, so we can explore the depths of our grief and still be in the light.
God’s abounding grace is how love finds its grip on grief and rises.
Peace.
[1]
Keller, Timothy. 2014. @timkellernyc: Twitter. December 6. https://mobile.twitter.com/timkellernyc/status/541331745313148928?lang=id.
[2]
Johnson, Bill. God is Good: He’s Better Than You Think. Shippensburg: Destiny Image, 2016.
Finding Hope and Purpose in the Storm 
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