Increase Our Faith

Disappointment steals from us.  It leads to resignation, a passivity that does nothing about it’s situation.  The resignation causes one to lose the value of their life, and when we compare our lives with the lives of others, we grow to hate our own life, thinking it’s not worth anything.  We become angry and blame God for making it “this way” and for disappointing us and bringing bitterness.  But if we are thankful in all things and trust the Lord to work all things out to our good, then we do not have disappointment.  We have contentment, and joy.  The joy of the Lord becomes our strength (Ps 28:7), whereas the bitterness of disappointment and resignation becomes a strength-sapping pest in our lives.

Those things which frame our lives are the setting, the circumstances, the places of inheritance.  They are not the inheritance themselves but they are like a frame around the picture.  No one values the painting for the frame itself.  The frame enhances the painting, but it is the painting that carries the value.  It is the same with an inheritance.  If the setting causes a person great disappointment, they will come to hate the painting, and will not see it’s value. 

Disappointment will eventually lead a person to believe that God has wronged them.  They do not see the promises come to pass in their life, and all their expectations lay idle.  Hope deferred will make the heart sick (Prov 13:12).  Now, expectations are a part of faith.  Likewise is the belief in the sovereignty of God.  A humble man will bow his knowledge to the unknown and submit to God, holding the promises and yet not defining them according to his own understanding.  Disappointment comes when a man defines the promises of God according to his own understanding.  Think about the Jews who waited for the Messiah according to their own understanding.  They stumbled when their Messiah actually came.  They were looking for someone who would vanquish their enemies and set up the Kingdom of God on the earth, when it was not God’s time to do so.  And they missed the other prophecies about Jesus because of holding to part instead of taking the whole of what was said about Him.

It is a humble man who will be taught in his hour of waiting, for it is a trial that sorely presses on him.  And yet, it is the time when humility can be accomplished to the point of the man’s heart opening up to the understanding of God, and he will grow from glory to glory.  The kingdom of God is taken bit by bit, and understanding comes line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little (Is 28:9-10). 

Now every man who exalts himself begins with the thoughts of the good sense of doing what he has in mind to do.  For he sees the product he would accomplish or the project he would finish as being beneficial.  This is ambition.  When pride comes in, then ambition is for the motivation of exalting oneself.  When the servant-heart comes in, it is for the motivation of serving others.  Ambition in itself is not evil. 

A prophet of God must handle the Word of God correctly, rightly dividing and rightly discerning it.  In addition to that, he must disseminate or disperse it.  There is one who takes the Word and runs with it (Hab 2:2).  So, the value must be found in the Word, and the desire must be there to give the Word to whom the Lord would have it given to.  The Word itself, and who to give it to must be from the Lord’s hand.  If a prophet receives a Word of God and his thoughts are ambitious as to how to use it for his benefit, then that prophet has sinned. 

Resignation to one’s circumstances works against prayer.  There is an acceptance that comes into the heart, taking adverse circumstances in.  But it is not an acceptance that precludes prayer.  If one will give thanksgiving, and also pray about those things which appear to be wrong, he is open for instruction and will hear God’s heart beat.  Either he will change, or God will change his circumstances.  But God will be glorified in his situation.  However, the person that is resigned has an angst in his soul, a giving-up, a hopelessness which settles into bitterness.  He develops a tolerance of the life that he eventually comes to hate.