I am writing this on 12th July 2021, the day after England’s defeat in the Euro 2020 Football Competition. Hopes had been running high as time and again England had come through victorious. Now we were to face a team with a far better record in international football for the final match. England flags were flying from buildings, and many people really believed that this year, at last this year, we would bring home the cup. But we didn’t.
It would be easy to look for someone to blame, or to blame the team as a whole, or to lay all the blame at the feet of Gareth Southgate, the manager and the man who chose those who would take the penalties that failed. When we experience disappointment, especially when our expectations have been high, it is natural to seek to deal with how we feel ,by blaming or scapegoating somebody - or anybody!
When I woke this morning, I found the words of an old gospel song were in my head.
He is not a disappointment, Jesus is far more to me
Than in all my glowing daydreams I imagined he could be.
And the more I get to know him, so the more I find him true,
And the more I long that others would be led to know him too.
I remember singing this often in the sixties and seventies. I wondered whether YouTube might have a recording. Unfortunately the few recordings there used a different and far less effective tune than the one we used. But while there, my eye was caught by a video on how women should handle disappointment in their love life. Intrigued, I listened for a while and heard this “You need to find a man who wants you just as much as you want him”. Wow! I could feel this resounding with good theology and so supporting what I am trying to share with you.
There is a significant difference between being disappointed that we did not win the cup, and focusing our disappointment on the team or any individuals. We all experience disappointments in our lives. I could provide you with quite a list! But when it comes to faith, how should we deal with disappointments? Perhaps a good place to start would be to pick up on that advice to lovelorn women, and ask the question, “Do we really believe that God loves us?” In the light of Calvary, how could we question his love? If Jesus gave his life for us and our salvation, how much more will he care for us as we follow him!
People fascinate me. When reading the gospels, the pen portraits they provide of the people that encounter Jesus is often thrilling. Take, for example, the family of two sisters and a brother who lived at Bethany In John 11:5 we learn that Jesus loved all three of them. When serious illness cast a shadow over their lives, the women sent a message to Jesus telling him that someone he and they loved was ill. Doubtless they presumed that because Jesus cared for this family he would come and perform one of his miracles. But he did not and Lazarus died. Can you imagine their disappointment?
Reading further in this account in John 11, we read that when Jesus did turn up, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Martha was the first to go to meet him, leaving her sister, Mary. Her words to Jesus are fascinating. She said,”‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Later, Mary could only manage the first of those sentences. Martha might have realised that by the time the message had reached Jesus, it was already too late. However, it would have been clear that Jesus had not come rushing to their aid. But, despite this, she did not lose her confidence in Jesus, and in his care for her as a friend.
Along the lines of the advice to the lovelorn, it would be reasonable to infer that she had found in Jesus a man who cared as much about her family as they did about him. The circumstances were disappointing, but Jesus was not. When you know that Jesus loves you so much he would die for you, you will never feel disappointed in him. If bad things happen, if he keeps you waiting for that answer to prayer, or even if he says “No”, he will never - can never - stop loving you - more deeply than you will ever understand.
Knowing that might not take away all the disappointments we experience in life, but it will certainly help us to manage them. Hats off to Garteh Southgate who, in the depths of disappointment, declared that his team had “given it all they could”. That showed considerable grace.
We have to handle the disappointments that God allows to come along in our life, but we are the better men and women when we do not indulge in the blame game. When you know him, you know that he will never let you down.
Barry Osborne 12th July 2021
