Is it Important to be Disappointed?

Hi Everyone-

 May this winter find you enjoying cool breezes, snow, rain, and all the other wonders it brings before new life comes in the spring.  One of my classes this term is Homiletics (a class about preaching), and I'm very excited as I get to preach three times, next week being the first.  So far this term I've been struck by a rather pleasant trend ... all the books I've been tasked to read so far have been great.  In reading for Homiletics I came across the following conclusions about the nature of disappointments in as they pertain to our relationship with God.  The author contends that instead of driving us away from the divine, they can draw us closer.  She writes:

Disappointments "draw us deeper into the mystery of God's being and doing.  Every time God declined to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed."  "Did God fail to come when I called?  Then perhaps God is not a minion.  So who is God?  Did God fail to punish my adversary?  Then perhaps God is not a policeman.  So who is God?  Did God fail to make everything turn out all right?  Then perhaps God is not a fixer.  So who is God?" - Barbara Brown Taylor in Preaching LIfe
 
My short summary of what she's saying is that disappointments shatter our misconceptions about God, which become our idols, which allows us to know Him better/truer and draw nearer our God.  I'd say the Bible is littered with tales of this.  Abraham and Sarah were old and childless, which had to be very disappointing.  It was only through this disappointment that they got to know the awesome power and love of God who allowed them to have a son at an age beyond the possibility of humans reproducing naturally.  Take David as another example.  He's anointed as the future king and kills Goliath, but then ends up hunted and on the run from Saul.  He writes Psalm after Psalm lamenting his fate and pleading with God to help.  I'd imagine it was pretty disappointing to know one's supposed to become king, but then be fleeing for one's very life.  But, God proves His awesomeness and comes through big time for David.  I think David draws nearer God in the midst of, and through, his time of disappointment.

Personally, when I got divorced I was pretty disappointed.  Yet, through it I learned so much about God, I drew near to Him in ways I never had before.  My life began to be transformed in ways it wouldn't have otherwise.  There was a lot of significance in my disappointment I think.

How about you?  Have you experienced this to be true?  What do you think?

Grace and peace,
Lang

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