What is it?

Looking through my journals and email, I found out that I was wishing for a lot of good things to happen. I claimed to be “hoping,” but I did not/could not be confident the desired outcome would happen. That is not what hope is about. Hope is more than wishing. [Want to know more? Click here.]

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Dealing With Disappointment in Ministry


Is it hard to move on after someone has disappointed us? We grieve and we hurt, but how long should we stay there? I’ve experienced this bitterly when someone I was working with to help them grow deeper with Christ and excel at their work just stopped coming around. I contacted them. I wrote them. I prayed earnestly for them, but they had turned away from the Lord and me. I was heartbroken. It paralyzed me from seeking out others who might be interested in learning more about God. I felt I had done something wrong. Maybe my sense of pride at “my” accomplishments in that person was attacked.
Possibly, Samuel felt this way about Saul. In 1 Samuel 14 Saul didn’t follow through on God’s command to him. In 1 Samuel 15 Samuel confronts Saul and asks for him to repent and put God first in his life. Saul thought he knew better and refused to repent. In 1n 1 Samuel 16 we see how Saul’s disobedience and turning away from God affected Samuel. Samuel was grieving over Saul (vs. 1). In the New Century Version (NCV) of the Bible it says that Samuel continued to feel sorry for Saul even though God had said He was done with him. The New International Version (NIV) says Samuel was mourning over Saul. “Now the Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul . . .?’” We don’t know how long Samuel was feeling bad for Saul. This verse seems to indicate that it had been awhile. Commentator Tom Bradford in his Torah Notes, thought that it happened pretty quickly and that there should be no chapter break between 15 and 16.
There are three possible lessons for me in this. First, I did not “make” someone follow God with his or her whole heart. Even if the person I’d been working with had continued to follow God, it wasn’t my doing – it is always God’s doing. As I didn’t make them faithful followers of Christ, I didn’t do something to make them make other choices. It’s always about individual choices. As a result, whatever happens with the people I’m working with, I need to let go and turn it all over to God. I need to let the Holy Spirit work in their lives and trust Him for the outcomes.
Second, whether it’s been a short time since a follower has wandered away from Christ or a long time, feeling some grief or regret is reasonable, even if it’s not desirable. I must use that grief to pray for those people. It’s okay to continue to love them, but a certain sense of detachment is needed, just like a parent with an adult child who wanders away from the Lord. (Side note: When opportunities arise where a parent can gently direct their child back to the ways of God, those opportunities should be taken. Key word: gently; not with heaping amounts of judgment.)
Third, God wants us to quickly take up His message again and push ahead with His agenda. I learned that there were others waiting and looking for some help in their relationships with God. If I stayed mourning too long, I might miss those needs. Staying focused on the past and on seeming failures, leads to depression or fear or discouragement, which lead us to inaction. Inaction is not God’s desire for His people. He expects us to be about doing His business. Doing so will lift our spirits and give us a new sense of purpose. We will be operating within God’s will. There’s still much to be done, and like Samuel, we need to be following God’s directives and keep moving ahead.

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