As you can read from the title I'm not sure where this is going. Yesterday someone came to the Prayer Room and handed me a stack of books to make available to others. Within the stack was a book by Philip Yancey. The cover on this book is worn. It is torn and ragged around the edges. The pages within the book have turned a yellowish color. I came to two conclusions from the appearance. One was that the book was well read and two that it was old. It was published in 1988 so that does make it old yet the title caused me to think that it would have been a newer book. It's titled DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD - Three questions no one asks aloud. For a moment I thought what could have possibly been going on in 1988 that would lead people to be disappointed with God. I mean living today is far more difficult than 1988. People today would be far more likely to be disappointed with God... wouldn't they? But then I realized that since the begining of time people have dealt with the same basic issue of trying to understand God.
So here's what I think I'm going to do. I'm going to read this book and journal my thoughts as I go and see where I end up when I'm done reading it. I don't know why I'm drawn to the book other than I recall the number of people who have come to Ann Marie and I in the past and even now and without saying it in the exact words they say, "I'm disappointed with God". And to be honest I guess that at times in the past I have felt that way as well. I think I have learned why but I'll see what Philip has to say before I share that.
Forward - As Philip began working on this project he states that he began recieving phone calls from people who heard the title. They would aks to talk to him and as he met with them they would tell him that they had never told anyone else but that they had experienced times of disappointment with God. As Ann Marie and I listen to people we find just what Philip found 20 years ago. There is a huge difference between what people expect from God and what they actually experience in their Christian daily walk. We have thousands of books, sermons, cd's. dvd's, the internet, etc., that all promise us success. Success in finances, marriage, parenting, faith and every other topic that you can think of. We are led to believe that we can remove or eliminate anything that we consider a negative in life. These books and sermons etc. all put us in search of being triumphant in life and we learn to expect dramatic evidence of God working in our lives. And when we don't see that dramatic move we feel disappointment, betrayal and most often guilt. The number one thing we hear from people is that they are experiencing a dry spell and often it is followed up with statements that imply some form of guilt. Philip tells of one woman who said, "I kept hearing the phrase, 'personal relationship with Jesus.' But I found to my dismay that it is unlike any other personal relationship. I never saw God, or heard him, or felt him, or experienced the most basic ingredients of a relationship. Either there's something wrong with what I was told, or there's something wrong with me."
I am one of those people who is always talking about a personal rerlationship with God. I have never considered what the woman said. I guess that's because of what I define relationship as. When I grew up I rarely saw my father, so I rarely heard him and he was not a warm and fuzzy so we did not hug and thus I never felt him. But all that being said I knew he was my father because there was a roof over my head, food in my stomach and clothes on my back. I assumed he was there. In some ways that makes it easier for me to accept God. I didn't expect to see him, I didn't need to hear him and I couldn't miss the warm and fuzzie because I had never been exposed to them. But now as I reflect back that could be why I have also strugged so often with God. When what I thought I needed wasn't there I began to doubt if God was there. And that being said I realize that the woman in the book and I actually have the same issues. We just got there in different ways.
Philip says that disappointment occurs when the actual experience of something falls far short of what we anticipate. I'm looking back and asking myself, what was my anticipation based on? A book? A sermon? Another persons experience? A feeling? A result or outcome to a situation? All the above and more. I think that's different today. I'm not after what I can do for God, with God or even through God. I am pursuing being a man after God. (PERIOD) I've never spent as much time during my life to this point as I have in the past 6 months in prayer, on my knees, on my face, submitting and surrendering to God what I have viewed as my gifts, talents, desires.
Disappointment occurs when the actual experience of something falls far short of what we anticipate. SELAH
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