How can I overcome disappointment with life?

Is there not an important lesson for each of us to learn through the misfortunes, disappointments and trials of this life? One person works hard to pass an examination and yet fails. Another tends a loved one with great devotion, and yet this loved one is taken away by the Lord. Still another tries to bring a soul to Christ, but Satan seems to hold that soul still more firmly in his shackles. What is to be done? We must not yield to depression but rather pour out our supplications before God as the Psalmist did — and then rely on His grace. He will not fail to reveal Himself still more to the soul that seeks after Him, and He will carry the matter to its conclusion.

Nothing will give such peace and happiness as a life lived in conscious harmony with our heavenly Father's plan for us. Let's yield our lives to God and view our circumstances as ordered for our good. Let's see in them a God-given opportunity to live in harmony with His purposes for our lives. If we do this, we will experience His sustaining power and His peace. Our circumstances may never change, but our lives will take on new meaning that will make for peace, happiness and a life worth living.

There is danger for the afflicted to give up all their days to their grief; but this is to occupy one with nothing but circumstances of sadness. How wise to turn to Him who makes all things work together for good! This makes the heart cheerful, which is or has a continual feast.

Further, looking beyond the immediate trial, and seeing the LORD'S hand dealing with us for our blessing, will lead to rest and calmness of soul. Instead of fretting and bitterness of soul, we shall find "rest from the days of adversity." (v. 13). Even so, Hannah found in her sore trial, when she turned to the LORD, "poured out her soul before the LORD," and was "no more sad." Her circumstances were not changed, but she was changed, for, by pouring out her soul before the LORD, she passed from bitterness of soul to rest of soul (1 Samuel 1:15, 18).

God’s comfort can meet us in whatever trial we may be found, for He is the God of all comfort, ministering to the troubled heart a divine solace that dispels anxious care, and brings into the soul the sense of His great love, and the realisation that He knows all about what is happening, not a disinterested spectator, but One who is ordering all for His own glory and our greatest good. He can comfort directly as we go to Him, and pour into His listening ear what afflicts us. Every feeling of the heart is known to Him as is every circumstance in which we find ourselves. Perfect love and perfect skill blend in the circumstances directly ordered of Him, and all that He may allow the enemy to bring against us is controlled by Him, for the enemy is not free to do as he pleases with us.

Now, with respect to things spiritual and things eternal, no question does arise in the heart of a well-taught Christian. It is in the actual path of faith and patience here that such exercises of heart arise as are met in this precious verse. How many a soul has had its desires or its affections severely tried in the disappointment of some cherished hope, or the withdrawal of some familiar and heart-prized blessing. Yet God is not less rich, and it is according to the riches of His glory that He prepares with an abundance far exceeding all we can ask or think, for the unfading joy of the children of His love. The lesson (and it is found in practice a hard one to nature) which we have to learn here, is the lesson of dependence upon God. A heart thoroughly disciplined of God possesses the secret of unfailing contentment and joy, because it knows that, be the desirableness of the object which frustrated natural desire has vainly sought to reach how great soever in appearance, it is in reality nothing, if withheld of God. As it is a characteristic of Omnipotent Divinity to call that which is not as though it were, so is it a prerogative of faith to deny all semblance through the knowledge of what is real; to call that nothing which is something, to say, "It is well," amidst nature's sorest anguish, by means of its ability to claim the Father of Lights, from whom descends every good and perfect gift, as its own everlasting habitation and reward. God withholds nothing but evil from them that love Him, or, rather, whom He loves. To trust God now in the varying circumstances of natural life, and to trust Him, not as men often speak, under the name of Providence, but in the clear-minded and strong-hearted confidence of filial knowledge — such trust, while it honours, and because it honours God, becomes to the believer an unfailing source of present peace. The natural Israel fell in the wilderness because they erred in heart, not knowing the ways of God who had redeemed them from Egypt. It was not that they doubted the reality of Canaan as a prospect, but that they could not trust God as the conductor of their way. They could not wait on God. Nature never can. And so they thought it a worthy thought to think of Him, who for their sakes had cut Rahab and smitten the dragon, that He would starve them in the wilderness instead of bringing them into the rest!

If trials arise in our lives, the first lesson to be learned is to accept them as coming from God. In the path of faith, we must submit to His will, knowing that He wants what is good for us. We must try to understand the special lesson taught by the difficulties thus encountered. For example, someone has applied for a position and is refused. A young father devotes himself entirely to supporting his family and furnishing his new home, but sickness stops him. A longed-for invitation fails to arrive. Someone is disappointed by the friend on whom he relied. Faith rises above bitterness and disappointment, finding in the perfect sympathy of the Lord Jesus, the strength to accept as from God's hand the trials of the way that are so bitter.

The characteristic of comfort is that it strengthens the soul to bear its burden with fortitude as well as resignation; and it accomplishes this result by considering the trial in the light of the glory of God. When sorrows overtake and overwhelm the soul, it gives itself many a bitter pang by reiterating the question — Why do I suffer this? Why has this come upon me? And under these circumstances there can he no real comfort, until such a one lays hold by faith upon the fact which scripture abundantly reveals, that the clouds and storms are but agents in the development of the beneficent purposes of God. All things are working together for the accomplishment of good; and this to those who love God and who are the called according to purpose. This we had not known but for the word of God; but He has given it for our comfort, and that we may thereby trace His hand in each event, minute or mighty, which befalls us. Leave God out, and all is confusion and anarchy: a crowd of pitiless misfortunes grinding man to the very dust of the ground from whence he was formed. Bring God in, and the man of faith can rejoice in tribulations also.

What a comfort lies here for all about whom the storms of trouble sweep! The Lord is with them, and every sorrow may be laid at His feet and every difficulty told to Him. That life which appears to have the least sorrow has its difficulties and burdens, and none of us have sufficient wisdom or strength to deal with these. But He is sufficient for little trials and for big, and so precious are we to Him that He will never abandon us. Only let it be realized that the grace of God brought Him down to us, not only to save us, but to abide with us, and that He is ever by our side to support and succour us and to sympathize with us, and it will change the aspect of every sorrow and produce the song where the sigh has been. It is the realization of His presence that can lead the saint of God to say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for THOU ART WITH ME; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me" (Ps. 23). And if "He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me" (Heb. 13:5-6).

You will admit that it must be blessed for the Lord to have His redeemed people at home, and that it must be blessed for them to be there with Him, for as in the new earth there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, and all tears will be wiped from all eyes, so must it be now in the presence of the Lord. You have no doubt as to all this, but what of yourself? You have sorrow and tears enough, you have been left lonely and desolate; and what a desolator death is! You hear the words of your friends, and they are sympathetic words, and are spoken for your consolation, but how cold the warmest of them seem to be. You feel that they do not understand what this means to you. There is a certain comfort in their words but they do not go far enough. There is a depth within you that they cannot reach, and your sorrow lies in that unreachable depth; there is a secret chamber within your heart that the most intimate of your friends cannot enter, and it is in that very chamber that this sorrow of yours has taken up its abode. Can there be any blessedness for you? Yes, for the Lord Himself has said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And He will make good His own word, even to you. Your sorrow has made more room for Him in your life than ever there has been before; it has made you feel your need of Him as you never felt it before. He has never been far away from you. He is at your side now. He is waiting for you to admit Him into that secret chamber where your grief holds its sway. He would enter there that He might fill it with His own peace, the peace of His presence. He is the great Comforter, and He is this because He fully understands. Nobody else does. Your heart knows its own bitterness, and there are times when your best friends seem complete strangers to you, so little do they understand you and enter into your feelings, but it is not so with Him. He knows you through and through, He understands, and because He understands and knows all you are passing through, He can sympathize.