Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick, but a sudden good break can turn life around. ~Proverbs 13:12 (The Message)
Have you ever felt like the first half of this verse describes your life? Have you ever felt like your heart just won’t be able to take one more blow? Have you ever felt truly, utterly heartsick? You’re not alone. Unrelenting disappointment is crushing. Unrelenting disappointment is depressing. But unrelenting disappointment is also normal…for God’s people at least.
God uses pain and disappointment in our lives to shape us. We see this pattern lived out all through Scripture, throughout church history, and all over Christendom today. Joseph was a slave and a prisoner. The Israelites were slaves and wanderers. David was harassed and hunted. The apostles were tortured and martyred. Church fathers were excommunicated, imprisoned, scorned, and killed. Even today, Christians suffer around the world.
God allows those He loves to experience unrelenting disappointment because it makes us depend on Him. He allows it also, because it makes us hope in Him as well. We continually hope for Him to provide the “sudden good break” mentioned in Proverbs 13:12.
I wish I could promise that your unrelenting disappointment will stop soon, but I can’t. What I can promise is this: our God is the God of the “sudden good break.” No, I’m not saying that the things you wish for will come true. I’m saying that God will relieve your pain someday. Perhaps your pain will end like Joseph’s or David’s; you’ll get an amazing promotion. Maybe it will end like the wandering Israelite’s pain ended; you’ll move into the promised land. Perhaps, though, your break will come like that of the apostles’; you’ll suffer until this life is over and you’ll be immediately transported through the portal of death, from pain to glory.
Scripture never promises that “unrelenting disappointment” will end on this side of eternity. It does promise, though, that Christ’s followers will one day be in his presence and that the temporary suffering of earth will seem like nothing compared to the wonder of Heaven. Yes indeed, God is the God of the “sudden good break”.
I hope your good break comes on this side of eternity. I hope you don’t have to suffer on earth more than you already are. But I hope more for God’s will and His plan. Whatever you’re going through now, remember that it’s temporary. God will deliver you one day…maybe today…maybe 70 years from today, but deliverance is coming.
Thank you God, for sudden good breaks!!
