Make Sense of Your StorySample

DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD

God is the coauthor of our stories. For me, this reality is both relieving and agonizing. It’s relieving because it brings me hope that my story is not over. It’s agonizing because it begs the question, Why didn’t God protect me from so much pain?

If you take your story seriously, sooner or later you will find yourself disoriented by the heartaches that have happened to you. And the very fact that those stories of harm exist implicates God: You expected God to show up, and God didn’t. How do you engage with God after you have been disappointed?

Job is one of many biblical examples of someone whose life was turned upside down by tragedy and heartache. He lost his wealth, his health, and his children. What were the first words he spoke after his world shattered?

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth, Job said: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! . . . Why did I not die at birth[?] . . . For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.” (Job 3:1–4, 11, 24–25 ESV)

It’s common to think, “I should ask God to increase my faith during this time,” or “I should be grateful for what I still do have.” Job did none of that. In fact, each of those responses can be a way to avoid being honest with God about your heartache. But Job chose not to deny his story. He put words to his emotional turmoil.

To understand the unique way in which you reflect the glory of God— the thing that makes you you—it’s important to name what you really want and what has broken your heart. You cannot know yourself until you have been willing to name the deepest disappointments and greatest longings of your heart.

This is what it means to engage your story with God.

How do you tend to respond to God when something difficult happens in your life? Are you more likely to deny your pain or speak of it? Why do you think that is?