Failures Will Not Define You
Disappointment Series
“Our response to our disappointments should always be taken to God, who cares for us and desires for us to be whole and to be restored…”
“23 At that time I pleaded with the Lord: 24 “Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? 25 Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan—that fine hill country and Lebanon.”
26 But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. “That is enough,” the Lord said. “Do not speak to me anymore about this matter. 27 Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan.”
Explanation:
Having now reached the end of his life on Earth, Moses is now looking to the future in which Joshua would succeed him to lead the Israelites into the land of their promised inheritance. Moses had toiled in the wilderness for so long, enduring the harshness of the natural elements and a faithless Israel who consistently grumbled nostalgic about life back in Egypt. Yet, because he disobeyed the Lord and lost his temper, God would not allow him to enter the land himself (Num 20:10-13). Here, Moses is not satisfied with the lot he has received from the Lord and pleads with him to at least let him look upon the land that had eluded him for so long. The disappointment must have been excruciating after the effort he had put in over the span of the last 40 years. His life's work was centered on delivering Israel from bondage into the land of promise, and having reached it, God would not allow him to enter.
Connection:
It is often the most painful situations in life that end up teaching us the most about ourselves, others, and God. The job interview that doesn't land you the position. The test you failed, even when you studied for it until your eyes felt like they were going to fall out of your head. The cancer that you prayed to leave that didn't go away. Disappointment and discouragement are very real things in our journey through life, and we must learn how to confront them if we are going to live as followers of Jesus.
Disappointment comes in many different varieties. When the stakes are high, these times in our lives can be times of deep tribulation as we wrestle with God's will for our life and discern the way in which we will respond. Moses wandered the wilderness for 40 years, enduring the disappointments of his own failures to heed God's word on one hand and dealing with the bitter Israelites on the other. He died without ever reaching the promised land. One thing that we must understand is that failure and disappointment are inevitable in the fallen world in which we live, where sin and death reign over creation. Regardless of how close we feel to God, nothing we do or say can ever eliminate the possibility of failure and disappointment in our life. What we can control is the way in which we perceive and respond to disappointment. The situation may determine whether we are disappointed with ourselves, with others, or with God. Yet our response to our disappointments should always be taken to God, who cares for us and desires for us to be whole and to be restored.
It is not in our failures that we are defined, but in the everlasting victory of Christ himself. In Him, our failures and disappointments are forgiven, and through conforming our way of life to mimic him, we are able to learn from our failures and disappointments, allowing us to grow from them and letting God work on them for our own good (Romans 8:28).
Action:
Give Yourself Time -
Coming to terms with disappointment and failure can be a very big deal, and we often need a while to process the emotions we are confronting. In some sense, every disappointment is an experience of a loss of some kind, and loss requires a time to grieve. However, we must face this loss head on, not hide from it or try to escape from it. Only when we are willing to face it are we able to truly come to terms with the loss and will be able to move forward with our lives.
Adjust Expectations -
Sometimes our disappointment stems from us placing our trust and hope the hands of others. This can often be innocent enough, but we must always remember that all human beings are sinners and are bound to fail and let us down, ourselves included (Rom 3:23). Therefore, we should always be cognizant of the limits of others and place our hope in God's love, which never fails (1 Cor 13:7).
Pray Unceasingly -
While human beings are bound to disappoint us, our Lord Jesus is always there to uphold us and lift us up. Thus when we are met with disappointment, raise your voice up to God who longs to hear our prayers and create light for our path (Ps 12:1-8).