Handling Disappointment
January 8, 2019
A year ago, some kid that practically nobody had ever heard of named Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench for Alabama to start the second half of the national championship game against Georgia. He made big play after big play, leading Alabama to an epic comeback. Finally in overtime, he threw a perfect pass that resulted in the game winning, and national championship winning touchdown. After the game, he praised his coaches, his teammates and most importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ. Tua was very vocal about his faith. A year later, and Tua is now a big star. He led his team to a 14-0 start. He finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting, and Alabama was favored to win the national championship again last night against Clemson. He’s just as vocal about his faith today as he was a year ago.
Things didn’t go as Tua and the Tide hoped this year. Clemson handled them in every aspect of the game and won convincingly, 44-16. In this game, a new star was born, Trevor Lawrence, a freshman quarterback sensation from Cartersville High School in Georgia. Before the game, Lawrence was asked how he keeps his composure in the big moments. He said, “Football’s important to me, but it’s not my life. It’s not the biggest thing in my life. I would say my faith is. That just comes from knowing who I am outside of that. No matter how the big the situation is, it’s not going to define me. I put my identity in what Christ says, who He thinks I am and who I know that He says I am.” Meanwhile, his coach, Dabo Swinney, could not stop praising God and giving God the glory after the game on national television! I don’t know what’s going on in college football, but I like it!
Back to Tua. His teammates told him after the game that his life will not be defined by this loss. He knows that’s true and he will be back at Alabama next year chasing another national championship. Alabama is in the hunt for the championship every year. After the game last night, Tua said that Alabama was good, but, “Good is not good enough.” He was obviously crushed by the defeat and taking it hard. What is the biblical response to disappointment?
Job was a rich man, prospering in every way. But unbeknownst to him, he was the object of a cosmic battle between God and Satan. Satan said that Job only loved God because God had allowed him to prosper. But take away his prosperity, Satan argued, and he would curse God. God allowed Satan to take everything from Job, his children, servants, wealth and livestock, and finally his own health. The only thing he left him with was his wife. He probably wished she was the one thing God had taken! J After he had lost so much, she said to him, “Do you still hold your integrity? Curse God and die!” Not exactly an encouraging word! Job answered, “Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” (NLT)
That’s the biblical perspective on how to handle life’s disappointments. Job could have cursed God. He could have refused to accept the bad from God. He could have only loved God in times of prosperity and not in times of disappointment, or even incomprehensible loss. In the middle 38 chapters of the book, Job certainly had some questions for God, but he never cursed God. I find comfort in these verses because life is never without trouble for very long. Like Job, I want answers from God when disappointments seem to pile up and success and encouragement are rare. We would love our lives to look like a graph with time on the horizontal matrix and prosperity on the vertical matrix, and for the plotted line across time and prosperity to ascend in a straight line. But life isn’t like that. Prosperity is mixed with adversity. Success is replaced by disappointment.
Disappointment will only defeat us if we allow it. Often disappointment is a tool in God’s hands that He uses to achieve some greater purpose for our lives. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Peter and many others experienced disappointment. God still used each of them. Thomas Edison had an idea, to invent an electric light bulb. He failed 100 times. When asked if he was disappointed, he said “Disappointed?! No! I’ve figured out 100 ways not to invent a light bulb!” Of course, he then successfully invented the light bulb and the world was changed. If you’re like me, you might feel like you’ve had enough disappointment for a lifetime already. But we should accept disappointment from God as instruction, try to learn God’s lessons, and strive forward toward future success. If we can look at disappointment as an opportunity for growth, rather than something that stunts our growth, God will be glorified.