But now, Lord, what do I look for?…

It happened again… the very thing I wanted to avoid. That “feeling” I despise….. disappointment. Not just any disappointment though, I can handle that – we’re all used to disappointments anyway. But the disappointing feeling after you had your hopes up and were excited, that one hurts. Attempted to let the guard down to just think “maybe” this time, and tried so hard not to be cynical. Them BAM… the major let down. Dang it, I should’ve just held onto the doubts like I normally do and not gotten even semi-excited. After all, deep down I “knew” this would happen and I figured I’d end up feeling this feeling. I actually brought on the disappointment myself, because I tried so desperately to control the situation so I could avoid the feeling. But I ended up creating it. Ironic?

I’m realizing these days just how foolish my own approaches to life situations and circumstances are. If I get my hopes up, I attempt to control a situation to avoid the feeling of disappointment, but it ends up making it worse. If I doubt things just to protect myself from feeling disappointment, my hopes don’t go up – but I’m miserable and cynical. Being unhappy and frustrating everyone around me in that instance as well. My “personal” handle on life is being challenged, and it isn’t fun – but it’s necessary. Everything I thought I once knew no longer applies and God is rocking my self-absorbed little world.

What am I looking for? Hope, affirmation, reality, security? What? Just how self-consumed can one be? So what – you feel a little hurt and disappointment again? Does this justify your actions, treatment, and love for someone? If it changes anything, then are you not being conditional? Why does this minor pain cause you to turn your gaze from Jesus?

Those are just some of the million questions and statements that flood my mind as the war rages on between my flesh and spirit. My heart condition is challenged in these moments of disappointment… it reveals areas that I don’t like to face. It opens up past wounds and I have to once again feel something painful. Areas I see as minor but feel as major – so I feel like a weakling, still unable to lay those tiny hurts down. It opens up areas of insecurity where I’m faced with the reality that I haven’t given those over to the Lord and I’m still perpetuating a deeper problem. It surfaces my self-absorbed, self-consumerist, vanity… in the way of not feeling ‘good enough’ or ‘special enough’. Not only do I begin battling the lies of Satan but also the issue that I’ve listened to them for so long that I’m believing them to be true.

Interestingly enough, I read this verse this evening not realizing at the time that it summed up my entire day and battle.

But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. – Psalm 39:7

If I’m feeling disappointment because I got my “hopes up” about something – then where was my hope? What was I looking for? My hope was surely not in the Lord, otherwise I would not be disappointed – because He doesn’t ever leave us, right? I was looking for hope, security, affirmation, and reality outside of the Lord then. I was handling things my own way… again.

If my hope is in the Lord, then I don’t have to try to protect myself like I usually do. If my hope is in the Lord, then I surely cannot be cynical.

Lord knows I’m still smarting from the day’s disappointment feeling… I’ll be pouring out my heart to Him this evening. I just want to put my hope in Him again. I’m so sick of ME and how I try to do things. I just want to surrender to Him, and stop looking for other temporal things to supposedly fill any hurting or empty areas of my heart. He needs to remain my hope and source. The Rock of my salvation, hope, security, and reality!

He still draws me to Himself, only by His grace through faith am I saved!

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