I’ve had that experience recently with someone I know who used
to be my friend and then all of a sudden, but again maybe it wasn’t all of a
sudden, this person started to hate me. In looking back over the time that we
were friends I would never have thought this would happen, but I do see places
where there were seeds of jealousy that this person allowed to take root, not just for me but for things that other people have too. The
enemy can do that easily if we’re not careful. In 1 Peter 5:8, Peter tells us, “Be
alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.” If we’re not alert, we can fall into his traps
easily.
Disappointment is one of the most dangerous emotions. It
seems very minor when you think of all of the other more violent and passionate
emotions, but it’s the very seeming slightness of it that makes it all the more
powerful. We don’t notice what it can do to us, until the damage is done.
Proverbs 13:12 tells us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream
fulfilled is a tree of life.” That’s an interesting image when you think of how
important the heart is to God. David was known as “a man after God’s own heart,” (1 Samuel 13:13-14)
scripture after scripture tells us that “God sees the heart,” (1 Samuel 16:7) that “Out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” (Luke 6:45) that we must cleanse our hearts (James 4:8), that
God cleanses our hearts if we bring them to Him (Deuteronomy 10:16), that God’s word is written on
our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). But there is also the side that, “the heart is deceitful above all
things,” (Jeremiah 17:9) and if you think of a sick heart, it is a heart that needs healing, a
heart that has grown cold to God and does not have His life blood in it.
The person who was talking to me about hating West Side
Story has been very disappointed in life. I love the music for it, but the
story always made me sad, and I don’t like sad stories. But the music when it’s
full of love is to me some of the most life-filled and beautiful and joyful there
is. But perhaps for the person who used to love it, the fact that life has brought
with it some of the very sadness of that story is what has made it now
something to hate. When disappointment came, the dreams were deferred and the heart
became sick.
At the time that I was born again, there was a woman who was
doing Santeria against me. Because I didn’t know then that God doesn’t want us
to consult with spiritists, I spoke to a psychic healer. She told me a lot of
things that were going on, and one thing she said comes back to me now. When we
spoke about the woman who was doing Santeria, the psychic healer said, “She’s a
very disappointed woman.” She then went on to say that was why she had started
practicing witchcraft. That it was a friend of hers who was doing it, and that
she was paying her lots of money for it, all because she hoped to get what she
wanted from life by doing it. But of course those things are just another form
of bondage, and you might get something you want at first because those powers
want to draw you into their net, but as soon as they’ve got you, they stop
working for you and you are enslaved to them, and you have to do more and more just to stay afloat. The
psychic healer described that woman as having cobwebs inside of her because she
had stopped living her life in any kind of healthy way. She was full of
darkness and all because she had been disappointed and had allowed the disappointment to take over her life.
The person who has started hating me has also been
disappointed. And it’s not because I have not been disappointed or because my
life is easy that this person hates me, it is because of their own
disappointment and bitterness. There was a seed of jealousy that was allowed to
take root, and it wasn’t just jealousy about me, it was for things that other
people have too, things that this person does not have and despairs of ever
having.
The opposite of disappointment is gratitude. When we find
ourselves sinking into the sick at heart feeling, the antidote is to remember
all those things we have to be thankful for. But that isn’t easy, and more
often than not we sink into the feeling of not having what we want, the feeling
that what God has withheld from us is in some way a curse over our lives that
makes us bitter and angry. And when we see someone else being blessed with the
very thing that we have so desperately wanted, our hearts can become sick with
envy. We begin to covet what that other person has because it is what we have
wanted, and once we start to covet, we’re falling into the sin of breaking a
commandment of God. And once one commandment is broken, we can easily fall prey
to breaking another. Maybe we’ll lie now, or steal to try to get what we want. And
then we’ll break another commandment after that and then another until we’re so far
away from God that we don’t know how to get back.
Sometimes the dreams that are deferred are being held back
because we need time to grow into them. Sometimes it is because God has something better for us. It may be for any number of reasons, but whatever the reason, we need to draw closer to God at those times instead of turning away and trying to do things our way. 1 Peter 5:5-6 tells us, “God opposes
the proud but shows favor to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under
God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety
on Him because He cares for you.” If we find ourselves in a place where we don’t
want to be, where we feel we are lacking our heart’s desire and our dreams seem
so far away that we can’t believe we will ever see them, that is the place
where we must give our cares and woes and anxiety to God. If we do not do that,
the bitterness in our hearts will take root and grow so strong that nothing
else will be able to grow there.
There are times in each of our lives when those things that
once gave us joy, those things that we hoped for and thought were certain to be
ours will change into something else, will not come to pass, will become a
source of sorrow. But God promises us that He will turn our mourning into
dancing and our sorrow into joy. (Psalm 30:11) He promises us that those who reap in tears
will sow in joy. (Psalm 126:5) He promises us that those who wait on the Lord will never be
disappointed. (Isaiah 49:23) He promises us that if we trust in Him He will do what He has
promised. (Isaiah 38:7) And 1 Peter 5:10 tells us, “And the God of all grace, who called you to
His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will
himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”
Proverbs 13:12 ends with, “but a dream fulfilled is a tree
of life.” Psalm 37:4 tells us, “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you
the desires of your heart.” When we feel the feeling of disappointment creeping
into our hearts, if we can take the time instead to focus on God’s goodness and
take delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our hearts, our dreams will
be fulfilled and the life blood will flow back into us and allow the tree of
life to take root in a way that will block out all other weeds that would try
to choke it. When we feel the seeds of doubt and despair creeping in, we need to remind ourselves of His promises and remove those seeds that are not life giving before they are allowed to take root. There will be times that we feel we are too weak to remove those seeds ourselves, but God is a Master Gardener, and He can do what we cannot when we reach out to Him and ask for His help.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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