The One Constant Series

Tonight, I wanted to start off our time together by talking about being let down. This is something that has really been on my mind the last week as I have been experiencing a big let down personally. A few months ago, I thought everything was all taken care of and it would be a breeze the rest of the way, but low and behold, we are near the end now and it looks like the Red Sox might blow it again…

Now, even if you can’t relate to being let down by the Red Sox, maybe you can at least relate to the worst let down in sport history by the one and only New York Yankees in the 2004 playoffs…but seriously though, we all have moments where we have been let down by close friends, family members, churches, schools, or whatever. Let’s see a raise of hands of who has been let down before in life? Would anyone be willing to share about their experience?

Being let down is not a fun thing at all and most of the time it really stays with a person for a long time. I think when it comes to being a teenager, being let down is something that you have to deal with almost every single day. It’s almost like everything about life is constantly changing, shifting and adjusting; and sometimes it is not a very graceful change. Unfortunately, being let down is simply a fact of life that happens and will happen to all of us.

The other day I came across a poem in a book I was reading that I thought communicated this very idea.

I’ve got some time to kill

until I’m not a teen, but being my age is harder than it seems

adults always saying

“oh you kids have it so easy.”

Oh please, you have no idea,

you make it sound so cheesy,

all the social pressure, yeah

we make it look like a breeze

to steer through the popularity ranks.

But do you seriously believe

that the peer pressure is bearable?

Oh, less than you may think,

sex, drugs, and alcohol,

the fight’s a ship that’s just about to sink.

Even being a Christian,

can be so hard nowadays.

They say things like, “oh it’s not cool”

And its not just some cheap phrase.

You say we don’t have to work for food and the necessities of life,

but we have to deal with people,

and emotions can hurt like a knife.

I don’t think you understand,

actually, scratch that, I know,

because if you could get it,

your respect for us would grow.

It’s so hard dealing with all the pressure,

doing what’s right is so much harder that it seems,

you have to polish your reputation, clean it up until it gleams,

but underneath,

there’s so many dirty lies,

that cover up the ugliness that this generation hides,

just beneath the surface,

is all sins of all our peers,

and sometimes it’s hard to realize, that God can fix all this.

***Taken from Disconnected by Chap Clark

This young woman’s poem is so insightful into life and definitely is heavy of being let down, especially by a number of adults in her life and I think there is even a hint of letting herself down. I love how she brings everything full circle though and ends it with a very important thing to remember. She writes, “sometimes it’s hard to realize, that God can fix all of this.”

I think this is exactly where I find myself a lot of the time, “that God can fix all of this.” This is especially difficult, because I know at least with my life, it is very easy at times to feel like God is the one doing the letting down. Even if I’m not blaming God, sometimes I can get so focused on the people or things around me and forget that God is in control. Even though it sometimes doesn’t feel like it, the fact of the matter is that God is the one thing, the only thing in this world that you can count on to be constant in your life no matter what.

Let’s open our Bibles to 1 John 1:1-4 to help us explore this idea about God being a real and constant force in our lives.

Before we dive in and read it, let me just give you guys some background to this passage. 1 John is an epistle, or a letter that was written by a guy named John. Does anyone know who John was? John was one of Jesus’ disciples, closest followers, he wrote the Gospel of John which talks about Jesus’ life, and he was the only disciple not to be killed but was exiled to an Island called Patmos which is where he wrote the book of Revelation.