WHEN YOU'VE BEEN LET DOWN

Hosea 11:9 “I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man— the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath."

Nothing is more universal than to have expectations of someone and to find out that those hopes, those expectations, are not being met. And that is not just a human issue, not just a feelings issue; it’s a spiritual issue too. It’s a spiritual issue because when we are disappointed in somebody it kicks up in us some things that are not pretty. It makes us want to do things and say things that are not especially Christ-like. And the prophet Hosea discovered that in his very human, very real, disappointment, there was much that he could learn about what God feels about us.

You see, one of the basic ideas in Hosea’s prophecy is that God does care about us. God does care about what we do and what we are like; God is concerned with our loyalty. But Hosea saw, I think more deeply than anyone else, that God is hurt when we are not what he intended us to be. God feels a real pain when we are less than his hopes for us. But more than that, God shows us how to channel those feelings, how to make something positive happen with our disappointments.

Obviously, disappointment with others shows up when they do not measure up to our expectations of them. When you have hopes, when you have standards, when you want somebody to be something or to do something, and they turn out failures, we are disappointed. That much is obvious. And it’s really unavoidable.

The problem is that my expectation for somebody else and his own hopes, his own plans, just may not be the same. What I want someone to do or to be and what he wants for himself –well, these just don’t connect. And, deeper, there is something in us that makes us want to push aside other people’s agendas for us. There is a natural rebelliousness in us, and it makes us want to revolt. Like the fellow who tried on a suit in the clothing store and said to the clerk, "If my wife likes this suit, can I bring it back?" How we do push hard against each other; how we do rebel against those who love us the most.

Put all this together and it makes for real, serious, painful disappointment. And so Hosea paints a picture of a God who remembers with anguish how much he loved his people, all that he did for them back there in the wilderness – and why don’t they remember?

Be encouraged to be pleased if you feel disappointed with someone, because that means you care. That means you have the capacity to value and to care. You see, if you are never disappointed that really means you have become cold and cynical. If anything goes, if it doesn’t matter to you how those close to you behave, well, that means you’ve grown numb. You’ve lost a wonderfully human dimension.

Now when you get slapped in the face with some disappointment, what is your natural reaction? What is it you want to do? How do you handle it? Well, some of us just retreat to the comer and pout and feel sorry for ourselves. But others want to punish. We want to hurt. We want to react and manipulate and extend our control if we can. Guess what? God feels that way too. Even God feels anger; even God wants to rebuke and to punish. As much as some would prefer to get rid of all the harshly judgmental passages in the Bible, we cannot. There they are. God speaks in wrath, God’s feelings flare up, and his disappointment turns into a desire to strike out.

But, how does our God deal with his disappointment over us? When we have not measured up to his dreams for us, God acts like God. God is simply himself. “I am God and not man, in your midst.” He is true to his own nature. He does not allow himself to be drawn down to petty accusations or the smallness of vengeance. He is true to himself and acts with compassion and love. He never gives up on us.

That’s how we are to struggle with those who disappoint us. Keep on caring, keep on giving, be ourselves, be what God has called us to be, and know that in the last analysis it is the life with a cross in it that wins others’ love and loyalty.