Daily Devo: July 18 Undoing Doubt and Disappointment

If you began searching through your doubts yesterday and found that there was some disappointment with God, maybe you were left feeling lost and just disappointed in everything. We're not supposed to feel this way right? Sometimes what we need is a good reset because we've gotten so lost in the wilderness that we no longer know where we're even at anymore.
Sometimes we become disappointed with God and we doubt Him because we view Him through the fragile lens of earthly love. It is all we've ever known after all. Maybe our entire life we've only ever known the kind of love that told us we were not good enough or smart enough or rejected us or hurt us. We learned not to trust it completely not believe in it completely not allow it in completely. And now we've come to know God. We've learned and we've learned and we've learned, but our heart only knows one kind of love and the preacher just keeps talking about love. That word conjures up so many painful memories that we tune him out. So we try our best, but in the end, we see God as only a slightly better version than our parents and/or all the other people who "loved" us and that's why we are disappointed. Did I come close for some of you?
That is the problem. We were never meant to see God with a bottom to top perspective, but a top to bottom perspective. We have to essentially erase our perspective. There is no longer a comparison between those we know who have loved us before and God. No one can compare so stop trying. We take God at His Word based on faith alone. We take up courage and we step out on that and begin with a whole new life perspective. We begin by seeing God alone. Him, just Him. Psalm 27:10-14

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,

But the Lord will take me up.

Teach me Your way, O Lord,

And lead me in a level path

Because of my foes.

Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries,

For false witnesses have risen against me,

And such as breathe out violence.

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord

In the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

Be strong and let your heart take courage;

Yes, wait for the Lord.

When you draw near to God as your only source of strength and courage and wisdom and love, you can begin to view the rest of the world THROUGH HIM. Here's what you find: through the lens of God you view others with grace and do not require validation from them. There are persons close to me that hurt me deeply when I was a child and fractured my up and coming faith with God until I changed my perspective. I now view them through God rather than the other way around. 

God's love is nothing like human love, which we talked about last week. If you are doubting Him because of what you have seen in people (even people who call themselves Christians) then you are giving God the raw end of the deal. Humans are full of faults in case you hadn't noticed. Tolstoy wrote, “Don’t judge God’s holy ideals by my inability to meet them. Don’t judge Christ by those of us who imperfectly bear His Name.” We do well to listen to this sound advice. 

A new attitude and new perspective do not come overnight. Wounds don't heal with the clicking of the heels of shiny red slippers. It takes patience and prayer to be refined and redefined. The question is do you want to change? Do you want to be rebuilt into something new for the Kingdom of God or are you content begging for scraps of grace? 

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”John 5:5-6

Well, do you want to be made well and freed from doubt and disappointment? It's a valid question and one only you can answer.  If you are done with the lies, the hurt, the doubt caused by this life, and the disappointment stemming from a life of hurt caused by others, then it's time to be done. It's time allow God to cleanse you of the yuck so He can rebuild you in a way the glorifies Him. Now that is not something I can give steps to do because only He has a plan for that. This is where I leave you in His hands.

Into your hands I commit my spirit;deliver me, Lord, my faithful God. Ps 31:5