Disappointed With God

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” (Luke 8:5-8)

In Luke 8:1-15, Jesus shares a parable about a farmer who goes out to sow seed and explains that there are four kinds of soils: the hard path, the rocky ground, the thorny ground and the fertile ground. The seed is the same. It's the soils that differ. Today, we'll just look at the hard path.

The hard path represents those people who hear God's Word, but the devil comes and takes it away from their hearts so that they don't believe and aren't saved. How exactly does he do that? I don't know. But he's apparently able to do it when the heart is hard and the seed can't germinate and take root.

Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart..." If we don't, we're in danger of developing a hard heart that cannot receive truth. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were exposed to the same words (seed) that led others to follow Jesus, but because their hearts were hard, they rejected Him.

Judas had a front row seat to all that Jesus said and did, but he betrayed Him. The same seed that produced growth in the other disciples had little or no effect on Judas. The difference was his heart.

A hard heart will keep us from coming to know Christ and also from growing in our relationship with Him.

There could be many reasons for a hard heart, but I'll mention just one for now, one that we all experience. Disappointment. God doesn't come through when or how we thought He would and so we feel disappointed. I get it. I've been there many times.

In a fallen world full of broken people, disappointment is inevitable. What we can't do is nurture our disappointment into an accusation against God, which unfortunately, I have done many times.

When my two-year old grandson died from leukemia, I was extremely disappointed. I believed the Lord was going to heal him. It didn't happen though. At his memorial service, I shared that even though I was disappointed, God was still good and still faithful. Will died almost two and a half years ago and even though I miss him terribly, I have been careful to not dwell on and nurture my disappointment into an accusation.

How about you?

Maybe you've prayed and prayed and prayed, but haven't received the answer yet. You lost someone you loved like we lost Will. Or you lost your job, the bills piled up and then so did the debt. Or it was the unexpected diagnosis, the discovery of adultery or the unfulfilled dream. And God began to feel far away and unconcerned.

After many years of failure, what helped me more than anything else was simply this: I chose to believe the Lord is good. No matter what. My circumstances, my feelings and the negative voices don't change the fact that the Lord is good. It's a choice to believe that. And if I did it, so can you.

Let me encourage you to do whatever you need to do to get that thought embedded in your mind and into your heart. Read Psalm 106:1 over and over and over:

"Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever."

Write it on a note card. Speak it out loud. Put reminders in your phone. Share it with someone else. Meditate on each phrase throughout the day. When it's hard to believe it, talk to the LORD about it. He understands.

What I have found more effective than anything else in changing my thoughts is repetition, repetition, repetition. Stick with it. Not just for a day or a week. Commit to it for at least forty days. You will begin to see a change.

When we choose to believe the LORD is good, it keeps our hearts from becoming hard and positions us to hear what He's saying to us.

Next time, we'll look at the second type of soil: the rocky ground.