Disappointment can be a disease. It can eat
away our ability to dream, our ability to hope and, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick,"
one Proverb says, the King James version. And when you think about the disease of
disappointment is misleading, meaning that there's never a way that a disease in my body
is a good thing. We don't ever think of that in a positive sense. Disappointment, while it's
not a positive thing to feel or experience, it is in its own way, the necessary flip
side of having hope. If you don't hope, you can't be disappointed. If you never are
willing to risk disappointment, you can't hope. Man, am I preaching to myself today? Because look,
I've spent large chunks of my adult life thinking that I could figure out a
strategy to avoid disappointment and still get the things I hope to have. Whether that's with people, man, they let me
down. I'm not going to reach out to them because these last three times they let me down. I'm not
going to invest in that relationship because what did that get me with this person over here?
Or what did that get me last time that I encouraged them? I'm not saying anything
this time, I'm not going out of my way. It's embarrassing to admit that, but even in
some of the goals that I've reached that were disappointing or the things that I tried to
achieve and I didn't get the success that I wanted and I was disappointed, I developed
a strategy and it was a secret strategy. I never came out and said, "Hey, I'm going
to set out to avoid disappointment," but I definitely did that in some major ways in
my life. Still am tempted to do it sometimes like, not going to go for it. Not going to initiate
it because what if it doesn't work out?" All of these things are familiar to us, but hope deferred… a dream that doesn't come to pass.
Things that don't work out the way you wanted, disillusionment, wishing life would be
one way and experiencing it another way. Man, if you don't learn how to recognize that
stuff and check it and treat it and deal with it and process it in a good way that honors
God and involves Him and brings in His spirit to help you interpret it, it will spread.
That unchecked disappointment will spread. It'll spread into your language. It'll spread
into your way of thinking. It'll spread into sometimes even subconsciously, the way that you
approach your day, the way you carry yourself, the way you treat your body like, what's
the point in taking care of yourself? Doesn't ever work out for you
anyway. You tried that before. So disappointment is definitely a disease if
left unchecked. But if treated, I actually think it can be one of the things that God can use to
develop our trust in Him. Because through being disappointed, that's how God moves us on sometimes
or through being disappointed in something, that's how we see that it was empty to begin with.
As I teach this today about disappointment and I think about, well, if we're going to experience
disappointment, there's no potential for hope without the risk of disappointment, that's my
basic premise here. Put that down somewhere, write that down somewhere. There is no potential
for hope without the risk of disappointment. I might even need to say it more strongly
than that. There is no potential for glory without potential disappointment. And I
don't mean glory for just your own self, your own sake, like, "I want glory," but if you
don't show up for the race, you can't win it. If you don't show up for the fight, there's
no crown. If you don't engage in the struggle, there is no victory. And to risk disappointment,
to risk that it's going to feel like it was all for nothing, to risk that you're going
to lose the money or to risk that you're going to waste your time or to risk that it's
going to be awkward, that's the part of it. What I have found in my life that made me
want to make this video about the antidote… The antidote to disappointment
is not to avoid situations that are potentially disappointing. That's going
to guarantee a deeper disappointment in the end. You know that, right? That's going to guarantee
that not only are you disappointed in an event, but you're disappointed in the entire
trajectory and outcome of your life. That's what that's going to do. If you try to
avoid disappointment, like isolate yourself and never play unless you know you can win and
never do anything unless you know somebody's going to do it back for you. If reciprocation is
the entry price for any good deed that you do or you have to have the instant gratification
and validation of everything that you put your heart into working or being accepted
or applauded, that in itself is a recipe for resentment. Later in your life
looking back, regret and resentment. Man, I would rather have doses of disappointment along
the way than the disease of resentment and regret in the end. I would rather have doses
of disappointment along the way. Now, I'm mixing my metaphor here, so I'm not sure where
I'm going with this either, but work with me. I started out saying, "What's
the antidote to disappointment?" But now I want to talk about how there are
doses of disappointment that we have to be willing to go through in order to avoid ending
our life in a state of regret or resentment. There are moments that we have to push
through of rejection to get to a place where we are willing to risk so that we can
have true connection and love in our lives. And to me, the key is like how they say,
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket." I think the antidote to disappointment
is don't put all your hopes in one outcome. That's what the saying means,
don't put all your eggs in one basket. That's what a money manager will tell you.
Diversify. Don't just put your money over here in US stocks. Put them in international
stocks, not just in small cap, large cap. Now, have some with bonds of 15% here and
20% there, and your real estate. A good financial advisor is not going to tell you,
"I got a hot tip from my brother about what Tesla's doing today." No, unless you
know what you're doing. Most of us, we have to diversify. Now, I'm not here to
give financial wisdom, but in spiritual terms, diversification of your hopes is really
important as an antidote to disappointment. In order to avoid being ultimately devastated by
the disappointments of life, you got to have a lot of things going at once. And that does mean
that if you put all your hope on any one thing other than God, other than Jesus,
it's coming down eventually. If it's a number on a scale that you want to
reach, if it is an amount that you want to reach in your financial life this year or in 10 years,
which I think those things are great as motivators to move and to incorporate the things you want
in your life to feel progress, but those things can't be God. Because Paul says in Romans 5, "We
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God that does not disappoint." That's what doesn't disappoint.
Now, if my hope is, "God's going to use this, God's going to get me through this. God is
working in this, I'm learning from this," then that's very different than, "I must have
this. I must do that. It must be this way." Every time I've done that, it's backfired. Every
time that I've put all my hopes on one goal, one way of doing things, one sermon, "This is
going to be the best ever." One song, one book, I promise you that even if that thing does
well, then what's the next one going to be? So as I'm making things, creating things,
ministering things, developing things, it's important that I diversify. It's important that
if one of my friends is struggling in their life, I have encouragement to give them because
I have somebody else that can encourage me. I can't just be locked into one person liking
me. What if they're having a bad day? I can't just be locked into one person noticing me.
What if they're distracted by their own drama? So this is what I wanted to say, and I've been
kind of feeling my way through it just to work this idea out and maybe we can straighten it out
together. Maybe this will have more clarity as we wrap around it, but the antidote to disappointment
is diversification. For me, that means every time I release one sermon and preach it, I'm already
working on another one so that if this one feels a little disappointing, the next one is coming. Even
as we prepare to release songs, we're releasing songs that I'm excited about here over the next
few weeks and months, elevationworship.com. Today's post's sponsored by elevationworship.com. Even as we're getting ready to release those,
I want to be working on some other ones and I am. I got some that are going to Spotify and
Apple Music. I got some that are on my phone. Why? Because I need to know that if these songs just
were meant to live in church or were meant to live in the hearts of those who wrote them and
experienced them together, then that's going to be okay because there's more on the way. That's the
spirit I want you to get right now. That's okay. There's more on the way. Say it out loud. That's
okay, there's more on the way. There's another one on the way. That's okay. There's more
on the way. And lose a little money. That's okay. I don't like it. I'm not going to try
to lose money, but there's more on the way. God is my supplier. That's okay. "You know that
person over there? They're moving. They're going to Argentina. They're not going to be in
your life anymore." "Well, bless them. I'm going to miss them so much. I'll throw them
a farewell party. I'll keep up with them," but I'm not building my life around any one person
and that's okay. Doesn't take the pain out of when people leave your life, but they don't like you.
That's okay. There's people that do like me on the way. I have to tell myself that all the time
because I know there's people who don't really like my ministry. That's okay. There's more on
the way. There's people coming that need help, and they'll be able to receive what Jesus
wants to speak through me. That's okay. There's more on the way, and when Jesus shows
up in a situation, there's more on the way. You know that he's very capable of turning
ceremonial washing jars into big old wine glasses. He can turn a common ordinary
object into something that holds something very special. He can transform the wine while
it moves across the room. That's okay. There's more on the way. "We're out of wine. We're out
of strength. We're out of ideas." That's okay. There's more on the way and that's very different
than having an expectation that this one source that's not God is going to meet my needs. This
one job, this one stream, this one relationship. Diversify. Divine diversification
is what I'm talking about. Knowing that if the brook dries
up, God's got a widow in Zarephath, and if you will meet the next need that God put
in front of you, this is the story of Elijah. I know you were already there with me, but
just in case you weren't tracking. When you get there and you give her the instruction so
that her family can be fed through the famine, I'm going to meet your needs too. That's okay.
The brook dried up. There's more on the way. And I feel that the divine strategy or
antidote for disappointment is diversification. That you know that the Lord has
lunches in the hands of little boys. Even if it's a remote place and it's getting
late and the crowds won't go away, that's okay. There's more on the way. That's okay. There's
more on the way. That mentality, that spirit, not because I'm so good, but because God is within
me and there are rivers of living water that flow from me. That's okay. There's more on the way.
Easy to say, harder to live, so let's live it a little bit today. I'm not talking about not
getting your sight set and focusing on something. Yesterday I talked about focusing. I believe in
focusing. I believe in setting goals and targets. I believe in insisting on reaching them and not
just watering down what you want to match what you think you can do, but I also believe that
you have to leave room in there so that God is not in this box for God to do what He wants
to do and use you how He wants to use you and bring about what He wants to bring about.
