Disappointed? There’s another view.
Who hasn’t seen a child crying with seemingly inconsolable tears about things not going as expected? Often, with a little patient and tender redirection, the scene shifts and dashed hopes vanish.
As most of us know through experience, children aren’t the only ones who confront disappointment. It can seem that disappointing situations are just a normal part of life we have to live with. But I’ve found that reaching out to God in prayer can bring His divine nature and character to bear on situations that seem to fall short, and yield a more uplifted perspective and outcome.
There’s a helpful verse in the Bible’s book of Job: “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (33:4). Job – who had suffered failing health, family calamity, and a cut-off supply of income – ultimately gained a more inspired view of God and his relation to Him. And it really turned his life around.
This points to God’s profound care for His creation, man – referring to all men and women – who includes no exclusion from good. Joy is ours to express; evil, wherever it seems to be, can’t ruin prospects or thwart anyone’s God-maintained wholeness.
The core teachings of Christian Science spring from the Bible, including what Christ Jesus taught, and bring out the power and healing of its inspired truths, promises, and instruction – for instance, that God is a wholly perfect and good God, Love itself. Each of us is created to express God’s nature of harmony, satisfaction, and joy, without a single element of frustration. That’s our permanent appointment, or identity, which reflects God’s infinitely unfolding good.
Accepting our spiritual identity as the reality of our existence, we naturally begin to see that evil, however it would seem to abort good, is powerless to dis-appoint us – to pull us away from our eternal place in God’s abundant harmony. This enables us to see that disappointment has no power in the face of our God-given, always available goodness.
Through my study and sincere desire to live these healing truths, incidents of feeling crestfallen – both larger, more difficult trials and smaller incidents in life – have blossomed into blessings that I never could have outlined.
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, wrote in her main book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science” (p. 322).
We don’t have to suffer disappointment to find God. But if we do face disappointment, prayer can lift us to an awareness of “the arms of divine Love” and give us a solid vantage point from which to behold God’s great gift of blessedness and peace for all.
