Living a life of faith, even when life disappoints

How do you live out your faith when life disappoints us? Faith by definition is a complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Faith in God I think has a deeper definition than having faith in a chair you may be sitting in right now. To have faith in God results in a strong conviction and devotion to.

Have you ever prayed and prayed for an answer? Maybe that prayer had to do with a health concern, financial need or a prodigal child. Maybe you are fighting for your marriage, and yet it seems your spouse is too far gone.

I am here to say that God never disappoints, but we need to look at everything through His eyes and not the worlds.

Remember who God is. He is The Alpha and The Omega.
The Beginning and The End.
He is the Author and Perfector of our faith.
In the recovery world there is a saying that if you don’t stand for something you will fall for everything.
Did you know that comes straight out of Isaiah 7:9?
If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all.

As I was researching faith I also found Hebrews 11:6 it say’s
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

Think about that; you cannot stand if you don’t stand firm in your faith and without that conviction it is impossible to please God.

I’m afraid that we have become so accustomed to having faith in the next charismatic leader or dynamic speaker that when they let us down and they will, we get disillusioned and blur the lines between living a life of faith in God and having faith in mortal people or things that will perish.
For me, this has actually been a long road of retraining myself. I can easily get in a funk when I say I have faith and yet things don’t work out how I had them planned or worse yet had prayed and prayed for.

When I get into my pity parties of why did God didn’t answer my prayer the way I wanted, I have to be reminded that He is the Omnipresent (everywhere all the time), Omniscient (all knowing) God. All I see is today right now in front of me. I have found that even yesterday can have blurred vision based upon an emotion, motive or feeling someone somehow wronged you.
When I’m done sulking, He is patiently waiting for me to come back to Him and ask okay, now what? What is Your answer for all of this?

I have also found myself bitter many times because God didn’t answer my prayers the way I thought they should have been answered but then I am reminded ever so gently by my husband when he takes my head in his hands and says, “you do know that it’s not God’s job to make sure you are happy, but it’s your job to Glorify Him through everything.”

Ouch!

I have come to the realization that my prayer life needs to be more of thank you for answering in the way You see fit, because my finite mind has already created enough messes today. Give me strength and courage to accept Your answer and to use the answer You gave to make Your name known.

Romans 8:28 is a verse that many like to recite, but I think sometimes we forget the last part of the verse.

And we know that in ALL THINGS God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to HIS PURPOSE.

This means life’s disappointments can and will be used as part of God’s plan. Our challenge is not to get so deep into a depression, allowing Satan to have a field day with our faith but to say, “Okay God, if I am going to claim; ‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,’ out of Jeremiah 29:11, then I have to live a life of faith through the disappointments as well.”

So how do we live a life of faith in the realm of disappointment?

Does that mean we don’t get upset, cry, question? No not at all. The answer for me is knowing God is still God. My faith in Him is not contingent upon His granting me “the perfect life.”
This is why we have a free will. We are free to choose to have faith or not, but for those professing faith we need to get back to an irresistible response of living a life worthy of the calling put on our lives. A life of faith in God, is for no other reason than because He is the GREAT I AM and He is worthy to be worshipped.

Your everyday life on this earth will be filled with disappointments because it is a fallen world, but as a masterpiece created to do good things, we need to live faithfully knowing that even our disappointments have first been filtered through our loving Daddy’s hands and so therefore need to be turned into praises.

I pray that after reading this you see that living out our faith in God should never waiver even when life disappoints.