When Christians disappoint.

Who do you look up to? Who do you put on a pedestal? Parents? Pastors? Missionaries? Friends? What happens when you get up close and see all the warts and blemishes? What happens when you see more of the “old man” than you do of Christ in them?

We often say, “don’t trust in people, people will always disappoint you”. But when it actually happens we are shocked and disillusioned.

What do I do with that discouragement?

You can let it remind you of the steadfast constancy and unchangeableness of God.

Thomas Watson, the great puritan theologian, contrasts the unchangeableness of God with the frailty of man:

See the vanity of the creature. There are changes in everything but in God. 'Men of high degree are vanity, and men of low degree are a lie.’ Psa 62: 9. We look for more from the creature than God has put in it.

Sometimes we just “look for more in the creature than God has put in it”. At the core we are broken, troubled people whom God is graciously redeeming, re-molding, and restoring to the image of Christ. Nothing is going to get in the way of that work (Romans 8:26-39).

But the process is long and hard and we are all at different places on the journey. And consider; could it be that you may have actually disappointed someone along the way? But please see the grace and patience of God with you as you stumble down the path. And pray for grace and patience for those who disappoint you.

The well wisher of your soul’s happiness,
Pastor Tom