Tackling DisappointmentPrøve

Access to Every Spiritual Blessing “We’re going to cut and paste kids” That one line is a clear example that punctuation makes a world of a difference! A simple comma can make the distinction between a teacher giving instructions to her students or a psychopath outlining his morbid plans. This is just a silly illustration but, the truth is, we can easily adopt a faulty understanding of certain statements. We often assign meaning to words and phrases because of our cultural conditioning – and that can be a problem. I believe one of those largely misunderstood phrases from the Bible comes from the verse we read today – Jesus came to give life and life to the full. We tend to define that full or abundant life as the culture defines it. We tend to think of abundance as wealth, health, degrees, power, position, influence and so on. Yes, our God may bless us with those things as He sees fit. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him. But that is not the abundance that He promises. Disappointment may come from a wrong understanding of what God promises us. When we don’t get what we think Jesus assures us about, we get sucked into a downward spiral of disappointment. We cry out: But God I thought You were going to give me that job. But God that house sale was supposed to come through. You promised me that… God may not bless us with an abundance of material things but, today, remember this truth: God promises His children every spiritual blessing in Christ. He promises us fullness of joy. He promises us His everlasting presence. He promises us peace that passes understanding. He promises His children eternal life. When we have that as our expectation and Him as our hope and fulfilment, disappointment won’t become our trap and prison. Scripture tells us that in this world we will face trouble. But Jesus also says, “Take heart for I have overcome the world.” In Jesus you and I find the strength to overcome overwhelming problems. We don’t have to dwell in disappointment because we have the astounding privilege of abiding in Jesus.