Life on Planet Earth on Disappointment

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No soul can be really at rest until it has given up all dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone. As long as our expectation is from other things, nothing but disa...

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Admiration often Leads to Disappointment

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R. T. Kendall

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Scripture

Jeremiah 23:1-2, Ezekiel 34:1-4, Matthew 23:1-4, Romans 3:23, Proverbs 29:25, Psalm 146:3, Jeremiah 17:5

For some reason I have always had a tendency to be a hero worshiper…Unfortunately I carried this tendency into my life in the church. Even those I learned to love and admire let me down. From an early...

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Benjamin Franklin

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Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us.

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Ronald Heifetz

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Leadership is often a matter of failing people’s expectations at a rate they can stand.

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Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Genesis 18:14, Ruth 1:20, 1 Kings 19:1–18, Mark 5:25–34, 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Psalm 42:5

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

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Author

Billy Graham

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Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

People by nature build, tear down, and rebuild. We build our hopes, get disappointed, and then search for renewed hope.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Romans 5:3-5, Hebrews 11:1, Psalm 42:11, Jeremiah 29:11, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Romans 8:24-25, Isaiah 40:31

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

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The Space Between Ourselves and the World Around Us

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Joan Chittister

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Frustration is something that does not exist—except within the self. It translates my world to me through the filter of my own need to control it. Frustration becomes the space we put between ourselve...

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Bad News as Opposed to Good News

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Hugh Halter

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Exodus 14:, Exodus 15:, Jonah 3:4-10, John 11:38-44, Acts 9:1-31, 1 Corinthians 1:18

(What’s the worst good news you’ve ever received? Here are a few that come to mind for me. “Mr. Halter, this is Bill from the Ford service department. I’ve got some good news for you. All the smoke y...

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Mental Health Today

Author

Alan Noble

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Scripture

1 Kings 19:1-18, Job 3:6-7, Lamentations 3:17-26, Matthew 26:36-46, 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, Psalm 42:5-11

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

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Not Getting the Point

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The Pastor's Workshop

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Exodus 20:15, Proverbs 6:16-19, Ephesians 16:19, Matthew 7:12, Psalm 51:10

Gerry, a Catholic, went to confession and told the priest he had taken some wood from work. The priest asked, “How much?” Gerry replied, “Not much, Father, just enough to build a garage at the back of...

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Begging to Stay

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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During his time as commander in the Roman army, Caesar Augustus (who would become the first Roman Emperor) had to relieve a soldier from duty for bad behavior. The man begged to remain in military ser...

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Lifting the Rock

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Source Unknown

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One day a father decided to take his son to play at the local park. The boy quickly gravitated to the sandbox and found himself mesmerized by the colors and textures surrounding him. After a short tim...

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Jonathan Swift’s Exhortation for Two

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Jonathan Swift

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While primarily known today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift also served as an Anglican priest in his home country of Ireland. While his writing gained significant traction througho...

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Not Until After My Death

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Genesis 45:1-15, Matthew 18:21-35, Ephesians 4:32, Romans 5:10, Mark 11:25, Colossians 3:13, Matthew 5:44

Frederick William I was a king of Prussia in the early 18th century. Personality-wise, he was described as exacting, frugal and austere. He was known to beat his children when they disappointed him. H...

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Problems

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.

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Author

Billy Collins

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This is the middle. Things have had time to get complicated, messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore…. Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack here and pitches his ragged tent.

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Brennan Manning

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For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or ch...

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Gardeners and Failure

Author

Michael Pollan

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Scripture

Hebrews 12:11, Philippians 3:13-14, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Proverbs 24:16, Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4

All the accomplished gardeners I know are surprisingly comfortable with failure. They may not be happy about it, but instead of reacting with anger or frustration, they seem fairly intrigued by the pe...

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Fostering Shame in a Little Girl

Author

Sandra D. Wilson

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I was standing in line in a crowded public rest room engaged in one of my favorite hobbies, people watching, when I observed a brief interaction between a mother and daughter. Mother looked harried an...

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O God, you make covenants with us and

Author

Chip Hardwick

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O God, you make covenants with us and never break them. We find it much harder to keep our word. We offer promises we don’t intend to keep, and we make deals that we intend to break. All too often we ...

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See What Happens

Author

Charles F. Stanley

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Do you ever feel as if God is far from you? Be assured, He is steadfastly near. Do not be disheartened because you don’t see Him in your circumstances. I saw an illustration of this during a photograp...

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This Christmas Which “Fear Not” Do You Need?

Author

Bill Gaultiere

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Scripture

Luke 1:5-25, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:8-20, 1 John 4:18, Romans 12:15, 1 John 4:19

Fear Not! In the first Advent God keeps saying, “Fear not!” It’s a word we need to hear today too. Zechariah and Elizabeth were told that after decades of waiting they’d finally have a child in thei...

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Like a Sleeping Bat

Author

Flannery O'Connor

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Deception

In The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor’s character Tarwater works hard not to think about his lost faith. But ultimately, we can only lie to ourselves for so long before we acknowledge the tru...

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Behavior vs. Identity

Author

Bill Tell,

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Scripture

Romans 7:19, 1 John 1:8, Romans 8:1, Romans 1:7

A number of years ago I was discipling a young man who had recently been released from the state’s juvenile detention center. As a teenager he had been hooked on drugs, and he had resorted to stealing...

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The Happiness Effect

Author

Craig Detweiler

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Scripture

Romans 12:15, John 16:33, Matthew 5:4, Psalm 34:18, Ecclesiastes 3:4

After surveying an incredibly diverse cross section of college students across America, Donna Freitas found “the most pressing social media issues students face: the importance of appearing happy”—and...

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Attacking Others, Hurting Jesus

Author

Lee Rhodes

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Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Ephesians 4:31-32, Acts 9:1-6, Isaiah 53:5, Luke 23:34, John 8:1-11, Romans 5:8

A young lady named Sally took a seminary class taught by Professor Smith, who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day Sally walked into class to find a large target placed on the wall, wit...

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A Need to Heal the Past

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

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Scripture

Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 30:17, Matthew 11:28-30, James 5:16, Psalm 34:18, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 33:6

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

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We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life - by expecting constant good health for example- then I...

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Psalm 22 | Feeling Forsaken by God

Author

Scott B. Bullock

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Scripture

Psalm 22:, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Hebrews 2:12

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

life on planet earth on Disappointment

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