Have you ever felt like God let you down? Maybe you had ideas about what things would look like and they didn’t pan out the way you thought they would.
Personally this is something I am dealing with at the moment. Moving to the USA a year ago, I had dreams and expectations, this great adventure we were heading on. A year later we are heading back, packing our house, getting ready to move. I know I heard the Word of the Lord to go back, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I know all the reasons, I know all the things He has done while we have been here, yet there is still a grieving in my heart. There is a grieving in saying goodbye, goodbye to people, goodbye to an amazing country and culture and goodbye to those expectations I came with 15 months ago. That’s a lot of goodbyes to process. And in the middle of it I can feel disappointment. And the question is, how do I handle it?
I was reading this morning about Mary and Martha. Yes, the two sisters who adored Jesus. Yes, the Mary who sat at His feet while Martha was busy running around – those two. But they too faced disappointment. Lets read it together:
John 11:1
“Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days…v17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Its an interesting story. Here is my summary and what I want to highlight. Lazarus is dying, so the two sisters send a messenger to call Jesus. Jesus said, “This will not result in death.” I am pretty sure the messenger returned and told the sisters. So they had an expectation. But Jesus delayed, and Lazarus died, the very thing that Jesus said wouldn’t happen! This would have resulted in confusion, disappointment and even possibly anger in their hearts. So Jesus comes, and what does Mary do? She doesn’t even come to Jesus.
Disappointment if not checked with lead you to pull away from Jesus.
Notice that both sisters said the exact same thing:
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
But Martha, carried hope and trust, she continued: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Within the disappointment, she still held onto Jesus. There are always going to be times of feeling disappointed by the Lord, but how you deal with it comes down to either a Martha response or a Mary response:
- Will you go to Jesus in that disappointment, and still declare that He can change the situation.
- Or like Mary, will you pull away from Jesus and let disappointment lead to anger and bitterness and ultimately separation from God.
If you are going through a season of disappointment, take it to Jesus, let Him bring comfort and healing. Even when you don’t have all the answers, trust is putting yourself back into His hands.
Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash
