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So many things in life disappoint us. If you allowed yourself to do so, you could spend a large portion of every day of your life dealing with the disappointment that someone or something has thrown your way. Disappointment could easily become the color of our lives, due to the people and events that never quite meet our high expectations.
The apostle Paul, the writer of the book of Romans, gives us a better way to handle disappointments than being disappointed! What Paul is patiently teaching in this tactically important passage of Scripture is that disappointments do not have the power to dis-appoint you! God has appointed you for goodness and for destiny, therefore disappointments have no power to undo what God has already done. When we become emotionally stressed out and frustrated due to the daily disappointments in life, we are giving each disappointment extremely too much authority in our lives. One of the greatest keys in dealing with disappointments is to keep them in their proper perspective.
To “dis-appoint” means that your destiny has been forever changed; that once you were appointed for destiny and significance but that the disappointing event has forever altered your eternal purpose. “Dis-appointment” would imply that once you were appointed and that some circumstance has stolen your appointment. Daily occurrences or events do not have the authority to dis-appoint you from God’s appointment for you!
Paul instructs the Body of Christ for all generations to come, that our response to disappointments should be wholehearted exultation. The King James Bible translates this verse using an incredible word, ” – we glory in tribulations, also …”
We have had it all wrong! We have mistakenly believed that tribulations, or disappointments, are tragic, life-altering obstacles, when the Bible, which is our compass into all Truth, tells us that disappointments are our finest hour. It is the opportunity that Christians have to show that we, indeed, are different and that we take this moment to reveal the glory that has been placed within us. We don’t cry because of disappointments, we rejoice in them. We don’t wail due to disappointments, but we look for the fingerprint of God to reveal itself.
