Don't Lose Heart By Jason MeyerShembull

What to Do When the Present Disappoints You and the Future Scares You

Disappointment is the distance between what we expect and what we experience. That principle plays out in the gap between the life we expected to have and the life we actually have. There are thousands of self-help books available today that tell people how to create the life they want, but the Bible does not speak that way at all. Can you imagine telling the people of the persecuted church to read a book about living their best life? The Bible takes us out of the here and now and gives us the full picture so that we can fight for sight with the eyes of eternity.

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. . .”( 2 Corinthians 4:17). The apostle Paul completely flipped the scales. He saw the affliction, but he did not lose heart because he chose to focus on the things that are eternal. Those sufferings are “light” and “momentary” in comparison to the glory that is heavy (“the weight”) and everlasting (“eternal”). The problem we face is that our trials feel far from light or temporary.

How do we fight this feeling? It is a fight for sight to look beyond present suffering and see future glory. In other words, we need the type of sight that can put things in their proper perspective and scope. We don’t lose heart when we suffer because the suffering we experience now serves the future glory we cannot see. This eternal perspective does not make our present suffering meaningless but meaningful. We can endure our present suffering in light of its link to our future glory.

Our future here on earth, however, is one to which we often invite our fears—imagining what we would do if we had to face them. Where do we go with an overactive, anxious heart and mind?  The issue isn’t that we look ahead, it’s that we don’t look all the way ahead. Why stop halfway at a place of uncertainty and difficulty? It is not wrong to go there, but it is wrong to stay there.

Our heavenly Father knows every one of our days from birth to death: “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16). Go ahead and read that again. He has written an everlasting conclusion for us in which every chapter is better than the last. 

Acknowledging your disappointment and fear takes courage. Do this today with the Lord in prayer.