Just Hold On!
A vital skill to walking through your disappointment with God is learning to hold onto him at the same time. Here are two skills to help you hold on.
This is the final post in a series on facing disappointment with God. If you’ve missed any of the others, I suggest you go back and look at these too for a fuller picture of how to process your pain and practically how to walk forward through your disappointment. You can find them here:
Asking for a Friend
Disappointment with God is one of the oldest themes in Scripture.The Big Takeaway: you are not alone, and God sees you.
Origen Stories: Purpose in Pain
Every person has stories that shape them. This is especially true of followers of Jesus. Here are two stories that shape Christians.
The Big Takeaway: God uses your disappointment for good. There is a purpose to your pain.Be Real (with Yourself, God + Others)
The first step to moving through your disappointment is to face the truth about how you feel. You need to be real with yourself and God, and then you need to let go.
The Big Takeaway: Resentment is natural, but forgiveness kickstarts healing. Our response is to release the debt.
With this background, let’s move forward with our final step - hold on.
Doesn’t it get easier?
I was a Christian Education major in college, a cross between a religion or theology major and an education major. My favorite class within my major was a church history class. I think. As in I think the topic of that particular class was church history. I honestly have no idea about the subject, because it wasn’t the subject that stands out all these years later.
The professor deeply impacted me.
Dr. Metz was a retired professor who returned for this one semester to cover for the regular professor who was on sabbatical. Dr. Metz was in his 80s and didn’t care about covering the curriculum. He did teach it but was more concerned about imparting his wisdom to a classroom of aspiring pastors, preachers, and teachers. Most of our time was spent talking about all he had learned from his years of study but more importantly, living life and following Jesus. The most impactful lesson I learned from his class and my entire college career is burned in my memory.
Someone asked Dr Metz, “Will it get easier to follow Jesus as I get older?”
We were a group of young adults passionate about Jesus but struggling with everything young people struggle with. We dealt with lust and greed and fear and shame and anxiety and so much more. The question was so apt because we all thought the same thing, “Surely it gets easier to follow Jesus.”
Dr Metz blew our minds.
“Oh no. Following Jesus only gets harder.”
You could have heard a pin drop. With eyes as wide as saucers, the classroom was silent.
30 years later, I wish I could tell you Dr. Metz was wrong. He wasn’t.
Following Jesus is hard
Following Jesus is just as difficult today as it was 30 years ago, and some days are far more difficult than when I was in my teens and twenties. I’ve walked through all the things I’ve mentioned in earlier posts - tragic death, health challenges, stumbles in sin, betrayal by friends and loved ones. I’ve witnessed war, natural disasters, and financial collapse. Some of it is much closer than I would have liked. I’ve walked through these things personally, and I’ve walked with others through their disappointment.
This can’t be the way it was supposed to be, right?
But this is what Jesus promised.
“Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.
“Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.” -Matthew 24:4-12
We don’t like these words of Jesus. We would rather skip right over them, and often we do, but Jesus spoke them just the same. When I read them, the promise from Dr Metz rings true.
Following Jesus doesn’t get easier.
If I’ve brought you to a place of hopelessness, I apologize because there is hope. A lot of hope. We find the hope in the exact next sentence from Jesus:
“But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” -Matthew 24:13
Hold on
Know this, it doesn’t get easier (there will be seasons of easier, but more pain is around the corner). It doesn’t get easier, so hold on. Hold onto Jesus. He is your hope.
Jesus’ word for ‘hold on’ was ‘endure’. Endure to the end, and Jesus promised us salvation. But when we hold on, Jesus promised us more than salvation.
For the one who endures, there is also joy.
“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” -John 16:20-22 (emphasis mine)
If you can find the energy and strength to walk through your pain today, you will find joy tomorrow. Joy will be your reward.
The beautiful thing about joy is it is not dependent upon circumstance. That is called happiness. Joy is a deeper level of satisfaction. When you begin to develop the muscles needed to endure or hold on, you will also build a reservoir of joy, so you can continue to hope when you are amid disappointment.
So then, how do you develop these muscles of endurance? Let me give you two keys. If you’ve been a member of this newsletter for a while, these two keys won’t be new to you:
Clarity
Desperation
Clarity
“Endurance is directly related to the clarity of our vision.”
Rory Vaden
That is one of my favorite quotes on vision. We endure when we are clear on where we are going. Some of you struggle because you aren’t exactly sure where you are headed.
Your struggle may stem from not answering this question: What do you want?
When Kia and I went through one of those disappointing seasons, we learned to answer that question. It was a vital lesson. We had come to believe this was a taboo question in our evangelical, Christian world. We believed God’s will didn’t include our desires. But God’s will is a marriage between what you want and what God wants for you. Ideally, you are living in such a way that God's desires and your desires align, but you’ll never know if you never ask.
But let me be clear on this point. To hold onto Jesus, you must determine it is Jesus alone who you want. This will lead to various opportunities, but the end goal is always Jesus. If your ultimate vision is Jesus, then your ability to hold on increases exponentially.
But you better be desperate, because challenges are inevitable.
Desperation
I’ve written a few times about my trip to Brazil last summer where we watched teams of 15-year-old boys fight to be noticed among some of the top soccer scouts in the world. These scouts represented a ticket out of a world of poverty. It drove them to a level of desperation a group of relatively privileged American boys couldn’t match.
Desperate people do desperate things, so what are you willing to do to hold onto Jesus?
Disappointment will lead you to desperation for Jesus or to fall away from him completely. Initially, disappointment led me away from Jesus — not outwardly but inside I was a shell of a Christian. Eventually, this pain drove me to dig deeper into my faith. How did I hold on and find hope?
I’ve written about the things that desperate followers of Jesus do, but let me share them again (with links to go much deeper).
Desperate followers develop habits that lead to a relationship with Jesus. Here are some hints to developing habits in your life:
who before the do
2-minute commit
treat yo-selfDesperate followers of Jesus learn to read and understand the Bible - God’s Word. Here are two great resources:
How to start reading Scripture
How to understand the BibleDesperate followers of Jesus learn to hear God. God does speak, and he wants to speak to you, so you need to learn to hear God.
Here are five ways to hear God
This is just the start, but if you can learn to hone these skills, you will be well on your way to a desperate grip on Jesus.
Jesus is your reward.
Again, let me be clear about your desperation. When you are desperate to endure, your reward is Jesus.
One of the sources of our disappointment with God is the belief that our reward is financial blessing, a perfect marriage, kids who love God, a fulfilling job, or some other outward blessing. That could be the case. You could potentially find these rewards, but that’s not the promise.
Jesus is your promise.
Jesus is your reward, and maybe this is a disappointment. Maybe you ‘signed up’ believing there was something more, greater, better. But after 30 years of doing my best to follow Jesus, this is what I’ve found: Jesus is enough.
Finally, since you’ve been kind and interested enough to read to the end of this newsletter if you would like to support my writing, do it for a little less than normal. Many thanks to everyone who is supporting me including Marlena and Craig.