Even If He Does Not
by Jamie Steach
Have you ever been disappointed? What about bitterly, earth-shatteringly disappointed? I have. In more ways than one. Getting rejected from medical school the first time I applied shook my whole world, and shattered all of my plans. I felt lost and confused, and so uncertain of what my next steps were. But as disappointing as that was, it was wrestling with singleness that led me to really tackle this issue of disappointment. I’m sure that most people can relate to me in desiring to be married and have a family one day, and that desire has continually been one of the hardest ones to truly surrender to God. Disappointment is a really difficult thing for me already, and adding years of being alone and feeling hopeless about the dream of a relationship make it that much harder. But, even if you can’t relate to my specific experiences, I think disappointment has the potential to teach us something really important. In those moments where we are forced to wrestle with seeing scriptures that tell us God cares about our desires (Psalm 37:4) and He wants good things for us (Romans 8:28, John 10:10), but feeling the heartbreak of disappointment or hope deferred (Proverbs 13:12), we learn what we really believe about God. You can know logically that God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect (Romans 12:2), for example, but to know whether or not you believe that, your heart must be tested. In such times of testing, we learn the important truth of where our heart, and our faith, really stand. We learn what we really believe about God.
“16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
(Daniel 3:16-18)”
Have you ever read the full story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3? It’s certainly worth the read! They were thrown into a blazing furnace as a punishment from King Nebuchadnezzar, and God rescued them. It’s a powerful story of faith, but there’s a key lesson in these verses above. These men teach us how to have a heart of faith, obedience, and surrender in the face of disappointment. They are confident that they don’t need to defend themselves before a man who literally is about to give them a death sentence. But more importantly, they know and believe that God is ABLE to deliver them from this situation, and they have faith that He will. BUT they also say EVEN IF HE DOES NOT, we will not give in to your demands. These men acknowledge that it is God’s power, God’s choice, that will save them, and nothing else, and they are willing to accept the possibility that God might not choose to save them. These men had faith in what God could and would do, but were resolved to obey even if He chose to let them die. What is God able to do? Immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20). These men have a heart that says EVEN IF HE DOES NOT, I will not give in. This, my friends, is how we should aspire to handle disappointment.
What do we know about God and His promises to us?
Romans 8:28 - If you’ve been called, and you love God, then God will work for your good in ALL THINGS. Not some things, all things.
Psalm 145:18-19 - If we call on God in truth, He is near; not only that, but if we fear God, then He will fulfill our desires. The passage is a promise that GOD HEARS US.
Psalm 37:4-6 - If we commit our way (or life) to God and trust Him, then He will make our reward shine like the sun, like a sunrise. This is something everyone can see. And if that’s not enough of a promise, if we take delight in the Lord, He will give us the DESIRES OF OUR HEART.
Each of these things is a promise from God, not just pretty words. But what does it take for us to trust (and live that trust) in Him with faith, obedience, and surrender? To get to trust, we need to be able to delight in and fear the Lord.
So first, what does it look like to delight in God?
Psalm 35:7-9 - David delights here because he sees he has been rescued; delight comes from recognizing we have been rescued, and we are rejoicing and delighting in SALVATION.
Isaiah 61:10 - Delight and rejoicing, once again paired together here, come from being clothed in righteousness and salvation. The imagery is that we are adorned with righteousness and salvation in the same way a bride is adorned on her wedding day!
If we are wrapped up and adorned in God’s gifts, it’s kind of hard NOT to be consumed in delight, right? But do we take the time to delight in those things? Do you delight and rejoice in your salvation, and the gift of being clothed in righteousness? How can we delight in anything else God gives us if we can’t be consumed by rejoicing in his greatest gifts?
The word used for “delight” in these passages is the Hebrew word שׂוּשׂ (suws), and it means to be bright or cheerful, to be greatly glad, to rejoice, to make mirth, or joy. The word “joyful” also comes from this word. Is this the kind of delight we experience when we remember God’s greatest gifts?
So what does it look like to delight in and fear God?
I believe the perfect example lies in Abraham when he is tested.
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
(Genesis 22:1-14)
This is an extremely intense test. Abraham had to wait until he was 100 years old to have Isaac (Genesis 17:17), and not only that, but Isaac was given as a promise from God, and he was supposed to be the key to how God would fulfill the promise of making Abraham into many nations. The Hebrew writer even touches on how amazing this story is:
“17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
(Hebrews 11:17-19)”
God had totally uprooted Abraham’s life, and Abraham followed on the basis of the great promise from God. Yet, at this request from God, it would seem impossible for God to both take away Isaac and fulfill His promise. Interestingly, at no point do we see Abraham resist God’s orders. We obviously don’t know exactly what he was thinking, but between what Abraham tells his son and what we learn from the Hebrew writer, it would seem that Abraham expected that either God would provide an animal, or He wouldn’t let Isaac stay dead. In either case, Abraham has faith in God’s power, but he doesn’t know what God is doing here (sounds a little like what we saw in our friends from the furnace, doesn’t it?). Abraham ultimately chooses to obey God, but I think there is a very important lesson here, and if you take anything away from this article, it should be this:
Abraham DOES NOT choose to obey God because he expects God to give him what he wants when he does.
Abraham obeys because he delights in and fears God. Abraham has faith in who God is, and reasons that God won’t really take Isaac, but he acts in obedience and surrender regardless. Abraham has a heart that says EVEN IF HE DOES NOT let me keep my son, I will have faith and be obedient. Abraham had a choice here, where he could have refused God’s test, or challenged God and called Him unfaithful to His promise. He could also have gone all the way up to the mountain with Isaac and failed to put him on the altar at the last minute, because he expected that God was going to stop him along the way just for starting to do what he was asked to. He could have felt that God owed him something. But Abraham chooses full obedience, and he completely surrenders his son with no expectation of what he will receive in return. Abraham has a clear picture of who God is, and who he is. His actions are the evidence of this. In the moment where God demands the most heartbreaking thing possible, he still faces the situation with faith, obedience, and surrender, and he still chooses to delight in and fear God.
So let’s take my comments on singleness from earlier as an example. The way I see it, I have two choices. First, I can start to work on myself, grow my character, and seek closeness with God in expectation that once I have made a couple character adjustments, BANG! God will make a boyfriend appear. Without realizing it, I think this was part of my perspective as a younger Christian, and it’s so dangerous because it’s essentially playing a game of manipulation with God. If we choose this option, we’re basically trying to manipulate God into giving us what we want by taking on the appearance that we delight in His commands, in His way, and in His love, but all the while doing it for the sake of our own plan. But God knows our hearts, and He can see through our manipulation and our shallow devotion. The second choice is the one I see in Abraham. I can accept my situation, choose to have faith, and choose to give my whole heart to God, constantly seeking to deepen my love for Him. I can of course cry out in my disappointment of not having the thing that I hoped for, and in doing so, I will realize that I never had a need for that thing, but only a deeper need for God. What God would see from this choice is genuine devotion, and a heart that is being truly instructed by His word. It’s a heart that is faithful, obedient, and surrendered.
We have many desires, and God knows this, but we cannot live a life of superficial obedience and surrender while ultimately expecting that God is bound by His promise to do things the way that we want them. We need to be, and need to desire to be, people who are faithful, obedient, and surrendered to trusting in God’s power, goodness, and choice, even when we are disappointed. EVEN IF HE DOES NOT give us everything we think we want in life.
We will all see disappointment in our lives, but we need to be people who will face disappointment with faith, rejoice in God’s salvation, and remember that our reward is ultimately in heaven, and that fact alone is beyond everything we could ever deserve, ask, or imagine.