What a disappointment!

Are you feeling disappointed in someone or something today? If not today, then surely at some point you have felt so in the past. And most assuredly you will feel so in the future.

Webster defines “disappoint” like this..."to fail to satisfy the hopes or expectations of.”

When someone or something disappoints us, our hopes and/or expectations of that person or situation has failed to satisfy. The secret to getting over disappointment is in how to determine who is really responsible for it.

Hopes and expectations are good things that spur us on, and give us goals to stretch toward. Sometimes people and/or circumstances fail us, and we are rightfully disappointed. But on the other hand, if we set our hopes and expectations too high, we can bring disappointment upon ourselves.

Think about how we have come to depend upon the central heating systems in our homes. Our expectation is to be warmed and comforted by that system on cold, blustery days—a reasonable expectation. However, if in our haste to “get warm,” we set the thermostat too high, we’ll eventually begin feeling uncomfortable. So is our discomfort the fault of the central heating system? No...it’s the fault of the bonehead who set the thermostat!

So how do we learn to “set the thermostat” to the proper temperature, for our hopes and expectations—both for ourselves and for others—in our struggle to become more like Christ? The Apostle Paul himself admitted that he still didn’t have a grip on that, in his letter to the Philippians:

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

Forgetting what is behind...straining toward what is ahead...press on!

Dear Father, please set my heart at the correct temperature, and thank you for forgiving me for all the times I’ve been a disappointment to you.