You Disappoint Me

What do you do when someone disappoints you? Do you get mad, shout, withdraw, punish them with silence, gossip, hope for their downfall?  Do you vow to never trust or value someone in the same way again?  All of us will face a moment (or many!) where other people disappoint us--when they don't apply what they believe, or even what they have encouraged others to believe and do in the past.  Here are a few recommendations for the disappointed soul. 

• Meditate on the unchanging love, patience, and grace of God toward you.  Read 1 and 2 Kings, or Hosea, or 1 Corinthians 13 and consider God's character toward his people.  Meditate until you feel your sadness or anger at the person become less apparent then your awe and gratefulness toward God.
• Pray for that person to experience the patience and steadfast love and mercy of God.
• Evaluate your disappointment.  Sometimes disappointment is manufactured by judgement or amplified by self-righteousness or unreasonable expectations.  Sometimes a person has only failed in being the idol that we were worshiping rather than the person they should be.
• Distinguish between weakness--a lack of gifting or experience or discernment--and sin. A person may be less gifted or able than you thought they were. They may disappoint you, but this doesn't mean they've sinned against you.  Both sin and weakness cause disappointment and pain, but calling a weak person out as a sinner can be a particularly crushing blow and reveals more about our heart than theirs.
• Pray and decide whether you have been called to help and serve someone in their weaknesses or confront someone who has sinned.  Help to the weak should be filled with humility and patience and self-sacrifice. Confrontation should be in a spirit of meekness and humility and inquiry, focused on God's Word and not our individual preferences.
• Love them always, internally and externally, with the resources and opportunities God gives you. When they confess their sin, forgive them by the grace of God as evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in your heart.  Don't expect perfect confessions,  celebrate any admission of guilt.
• Don't meditate on their weakness or sins.  Disappointment becomes debilitating when our thoughts linger on the failures or mistakes of others.  Discipline your mind to be full of the grace of God and the growth of your own soul and not your disappointments in others.
• Encourage the smallest evidences of growth in them, no matter how far they have to go.
• Rejoice when God uses them in his kingdom. A sign of deepening bitterness is when we expect God to punish or restrict others because they have disappointed us. Inevitably they will still be imperfect, weak, and sinful when God calls them to some occasion of service again.  Don't demand for them what you would not want God to do to you.
• Beware comparison of circumstances.  We often think those who have disappointed us should suffer more than we do.
• Don't be afraid of new friendships, or of rebuilding old friendships, of emulating the good that you see in others, or of love that "hopes all things."  We cannot truly love others without risking disappointment.  It's one of the signs of true love.

Disappointment is inevitable in a fallen world.  Heroes, spouses,  friends, co-workers, politicians, bosses, church leaders, parents,  children-- all will at some point be less than we want them to be, probably less than they want to be.  They may or may not be aware of it when it happens.   Don't let disappointment wrap a chain around your soul imprisoning you into a helpless sadness, stubborn cynicism, or permanent anger.

Brother or Sister in Christ, when you experience disappointment, may God's steadfast love fill your soul with joy, peace, forgiveness, and love.  May you be used to represent him toward those around you who need to experience his patient grace through you.

Respect the Grey Crown

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. Proverbs 16:31

The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.  Proverbs 20:29

This year I turn 33--old enough for my children to think I'm ancient and young enough for my living heroes to think I'm still a kid.   I realize that at my age a deadly temptation lurks in how I view those older than me.  Here it is:  those older tried their best, but I know more and see better than they did, and glory is found in boldness and courage more than humility and receptivity toward those who have gone before me.  After all, new commentaries, books, exegetical studies, and research has come out in the last fifteen years, along with the iphone and facebook.  Clearly youth has the edge for usefulness in the kingdom.  After all, I'm not a brand new Christian, and I'm not new in ministry.  I have some experience in church navigation at this point--I've passed through some storms, felt some weakness, endured some temptations.  I'm good to go.   The snare is set and baited, alluring and fatal.  "You have all the wisdom that the church needs. You can improve on the church of the past while avoiding any new mistakes..."

I am not afraid to demonstrate the "glory" of youth--not afraid of showing courage and strength toward godliness and Biblical leadership.  I'm not afraid to fight for the gospel and Biblical truth. I know that God has a specific purpose for me and for my generation. And I pray God grants me and my co-laboring, youthful pastors the grace to serve his church for many decades into the future.  But I pray we will see and avoid, even despise, the snare. 

The greatest danger to my church is my own pride.  One way that pride could manifest itself is in a generational, historical direction.  Here are a few ways it might express itself.  Please pray that if it does, God will bring a wise, older pastor to help me. 

• Do I rarely ask an older pastor for input or advice?
• Do I almost never follow the advice of an older pastor, in the rare occasion I request it?
• Do I assume that access to more Biblical resources is the same as growing in the fear of the Lord?
• Do I assume that vigor and strength are more important than endurance and humility?
• Am I more comfortable being a reformer than a learner?
• Do I forget that the next generation is watching how I talk about those older than me?
• Am I more passionate about new practices than I am about unchanging doctrines?
• Am I honestly more impressed by well known pastors than those that have been faithful over decades?
• Do I assume that any current health in the church was easily accomplished, and any current weaknesses easily avoided?
• Do I forget that Hebrews 11 celebrates the faithfulness of those who were clearly weak?
• Do I forget that I will need others to apply Hebrews 11 to my ministry one day?

Many young pastors today have been given incredible vision and vigor for God in our generation.  I pray God will number me among them.  I pray God will bring new revival to the church and will allow us to be faithful to the gospel entrusted to us.  In order for that to happen, he will have to guard us from the snare of generational pride. I pray we will respect the crown of grey hair, and show honor to those who have that crown who are close to us.

* Originally posted at rhchurch.com

The Difference Between Feeling Loved and Being Loved

Last night I heard my son crying and upset in his room.  He had been asleep for hours and wasn't really awake even as I tried to comfort him.  I thought he might be having a nightmare, facing some pain or difficulty or scary event, unaware that his daddy was close by and that he was perfectly safe and loved.  Our experience in life is often like night troubles; we feel scared and vulnerable and alone. Sometimes we even decide that feeling unloved means we are unloved--just like a nightmare.  But there is a difference.


A Christian may feel unloved, alone, vulnerable, weak, and scared.   Most of the lives of believers recorded in the Bible and in history trace some season of feeling that God was distant and unloving.  In other words, their emotions did not register the strong feeling of peace and joy and happiness and security that comes when you feel loved.   Yet feelings do not describe reality. 

My son was fully loved, protected, even cherished and adored as he cried his way back to sleep last night.  He felt one way, but his objective reality was the opposite.  I was close by, watching, ensuring his safety, comforting him with my voice. 

God's love for Christians never wavers, never wanes.  His watchful gaze never blinks.  He never forgets our needs and is always aware of our vulnerabilities.  He always protects and cares and comforts and his voice is always speaking grace and assurance to us through his Word.  We may feel unloved, but we are always actually loved more than we can imagine. 

So, brother or sister in Christ, the next time you feel unloved, be at peace, and remind your feelings that they cannot dictate reality to God.  Your emotions will one day be forced to comply with reality; the feeling of being loved will return and match the reality of God's steadfast love for us.  You are loved, whatever you are feeling right now.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.  Lamentations 3:22

Don't Summarize the Bible by your Current Pastoral Burden

I enjoy watching some of the theological dialogues that take place online between different pastors.  I am a pastor and I want to insure that my leadership is Biblical--so I am looking to learn. I also want to know what people in my church might be reading online, so that I can protect them from false teaching and point them toward rich resources.   Here's one pastoral warning I've taken from the discussion:  don't summarize the Bible by your current pastoral burden. 

Every pastor notices dangerous tendencies in his own flock, remembers weaknesses in the churches he grew up around, and watches disturbing trends in his own tribe or church tradition.  Appropriately, he brings God's Word to bear to correct or adjust these dangers and point people in the right and Biblical direction.  However, there is a danger here.  Too often pastors thunder against a current weakness as though nothing else matters. Sometimes our language and vocabulary is not true to the full complexity of Biblical teaching. Sometimes we summarize the Bible in terms of our current burden, rather than allowing the Bible to speak on its own terms.

God's Word is timeless, perfectly addressing every generation and every problem in the church.  If we summarize the Bible inaccurately, in an attempt to add weight to our current burden,  we will only train people to look to us, rather than to the Scriptures as their source of authority.  Here are a few ways we might do this.


1.  Because my church is legalistic I'll say, "The Bible is against law keeping and all about receiving God's grace."  (The Bible is about receiving God's grace and the Bible also calls us to obey God's law in Christ.)

2.  Because my church is worldly I'll say, "The Bible is all about holiness and tells Christians to be separate from this world."  (The Bible is about holiness, but also tells Christians to love unbelievers and to care for them spiritually and practically.)

3.  Because the worship in my church is dry and formal I'll say, "The Bible commands passionate and loud worship and our goal is to have an exciting worship experience."  (The Bible is about passionate worship, but also commands reverence and order and peace in our meetings.)

4.  Because there is a weakness in evangelism in our church I'll say, "The Bible is all about missions and everything we do should focus on reaching the lost with the gospel."  (The Bible is about missions but is ultimately is about God's glory and also commands worship and loving other Christians.)

5. Because there is a weakness in parenting in our culture I'll say, "The Bible is all about family discipleship and our church only exists to serve the ultimate church in each home." (The Bible does command and celebrate family discipleship, but also tells us that our ultimate family is God's church and that Christians in the church are called to disciple one another.)


The greatest danger of these hyperbolic summaries is that they disconnect the church from the actual teaching of Scripture.  The Church is rendered vulnerable to teaching that is unbiblical because they have become used to teaching that is imbalanced.  They are forced to reject contradictory or complimentary verses outright, or they simply get used to only reading the parts of the Bible that agree with their current emphasis.  Both are deadly over multiple generations in the church.

Pastors and Christians must guard against this tendency.  Every generation will need pastors and teachers to highlight specific aspects of God's truth to resist the latest trends of wrong thinking. But all of us should have the next generation in view, and insure that our summaries are fully Biblical, that our accents do not become our authority, and that the Bible is not muted in our church when the weakness swings in the opposite direction.