God Is Good Even When You Can’t See It
John Bailey and Mark Renfroe talk about their life experiences and learning to trust God through good times and bad.
John Bailey and Mark Renfroe talk about their life experiences and learning to trust God through good times and bad.
I have a friend that I’ve known for 20-something years, and he had an amazing ministry. It was growing rapidly. He bought an office building and was adding on to that. People were coming to Christ. He had open doors to preach around the country.
We have learned from Isaiah 49 that the Lord knows your battle. He has fought it before you. And it is no sin to endure thoughts that your labor has been in vain, or to be cast down with a sense of failure over shattered expectations. Jesus himself experienced this and was without sin.
“I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:26-27).
Jesus had just miraculously fed a crowd of thousands, amazing and thrilling the people. They were ready to eagerly follow this wonder-working Messiah — until he challenged them about what they were really after. Then their adulation turned to scorn, and they turned and left him by the droves.
Some believers harbor resentment toward God, which can be very dangerous. Sadly, a growing number of ministers are becoming increasingly disillusioned, burned out, even angry with God, and are walking away from their calling. While this is hard to understand, many of them reason, “I was diligent, faithful — I gave it my best — but the harder I worked, the fewer results I saw. My congregation was not appreciative and all my prayers seemed in vain. Now I'm taking a step back so I can try to figure things out.”
Disappointment seems like the gateway emotion to a lot of worse ones: bitterness, anger, depression and more. By that logic, God wouldn’t want Christians to experience disappointment. Why expose us to what only breeds bad things in our hearts?
The only problem is that Jesus regularly disappointed people.
In this episode of the Gary Wilkerson podcast, Gary talks about how our culture’s definition of abundance is crooked and sets us up for unhealthy expectations.
How many of us feel disappointed in ourselves or like a disappointment to our friends, family or even God? Often, we say terrible things about ourselves that we would never say to another person.
Feeling as if we should have accomplished more, traveled to more places or made different choices in our past can become a terrible weight on the soul. Even if we do achieve our greatest dreams, they almost always feel hollow once they’re in our hands. We fall prey to the enemy’s lies rather than trusting what God says.