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Perceptions #200144
"HOW DO YOU HANDLE DISAPPOINTMENT"
by James Bailey
Maybe you have heard of Coach Speedy Morris, the basketball coach at La Salle University. One morning as Coach Speedy was shaving, his wife called up stairs that someone from Sports Illustrated was on the phone and wanted to talk to him. Just sure that this was his chance to get some national publicity, Coach wheeled around and headed for the door, nicking himself with a razor as he went. Now with a mixture of blood and shaving cream on his face he missed the first step on the stairs and fell down a complete flight of steps. He hit his head hard enough to "ring his bell" pretty good. As he staggered into the kitchen his wife handed him the phone, and the voice on the other end said, "For only 75 cents an issue you can have a full year's subscription to Sports Illustrated."
To say that this phone call didn't live up to his expectation goes without saying. Truth is, life is like that. Like the little boy who crawled under a tent to see the circus, and got inside and it was a revival meeting, things just don't materialize the way we want them to. The main issue is what we will do with our disappointments.
I can only imagine how Jesus must have felt when he became aware that Peter had denied him three times. Or how the father must have felt when the prodigal son came and demanded his part of the birthright so he could leave. Or imagine how Jacob must have felt when the brothers told him that Joseph was dead. How we deal with those things has a great deal to do with our happiness in life. We can grieve ourselves sick over some disappointment. Allow the disappointment to tell us how we are going to feel. We can allow some disappointment to color the world we live in, and cast its deep hues over everything in life. Or we can react with Hope, based on faith in God and Christ.
Like the poem says, "Two men looked through prison bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars." How we direct our view of the earth, based on our faith in the God of heaven, determines much about how we face the disappointment that will come into our lives.