Disillusionment: With God and Everyone Else! By Capt. Kelly Durant 9-27-15
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10
2. Ever see a toddler in a store fall on the floor and scream when the mom puts the toy back on the shelf? Toddler is angry thinking, “How could mama let me down!” How many of you have ever been disappointed in someone? Most of you right now are probably disappointed with someone in your life! It might be with a relative or friend, with a parent, with a son or daughter, and some of you may even be disappointed with God! But it is not human nature to confess that! You might also be disillusioned with yourself as you have not been able to fulfill your dreams of having your idea of a perfect life! Disillusionment, bitterness, and anger is killing many people today! As Christians we must conquer disappointments!
Disillusionments are a reality in the life of everyone! Some are your fault, and some are other people’s fault. We can either face them, or deny them. Today I want you to identify which disillusionments bother you most in life. Why do we as people experience them? Do all of us suffer from unrealistic expectations?
According to the dictionary disillusionment is “A feeling of disappointment, akin to depression, arising from the realization that something is not what it was expected or believed to be, possibly accompanied by philosophical angst from having one's beliefs challenged.” People often become competitive and proud trying to conquer their feelings of disillusion by deceiving their heart that they are better than others. This why we must weigh our deeds because as humans we exaggerate, placing ourselves either too high or too low. We need God’s strength, or we lose the battle in our own hearts and minds!
3. The heart, as the Bible describes it, is the seat of emotions, the source from where all feelings come. Why is it as humans we never learn how to dominate our feelings, which include pride, ambitions, expectations, and disillusionments, and we seem to always be deceiving ourselves with our own personal dreams and expectations in life?
The verse today in Jeremiah confirms that we as people are beyond comprehension, we often don’t even understand our own feelings within us, nor do we understand others as people seem to always “let you down”, sooner or later. After a certain amount of inflicted disappointments, the average person becomes bitter, angry, or disconnected, and puts the blame on others. Many people try to deal with their intimidating feelings of disillusionment but without depending on God, even trying to deny that these disappointments exist in life but this is dishonesty with God and one’s self.
You and I are motivated by our thoughts and feelings, which become our passions and expressions. This transfers into good or evil, depending on the person’s relationship with Jesus. Jesus can motivate you and me with an amazing love beyond description, but few people practice the true love of Christ to its fullest! Imagine even loving your enemies! Sadly, the vast majority of humanity are motived by negative stimuli, by what they hate! And why do they hate? Did something tragic happen sometime in the past? Or is a person’s hate infused into them by the influence of other haters? 1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Nazis, Communists, politicians, and certain false religions are experts at imputing hate into minds and hearts, and murder is the result!
4. A reaction to some disillusionment might cause a person to become an “activist” type, connected and involved in the community to make a difference fighting for better conditions and a better world. There is a place for righteous anger. God, however, will weigh our deeds. How have you dealt with your personal issues in the end? We will get the “deeds we deserve” as in Jer. 17:10.
What I observe that is most deceitful about the heart is that most people are setting their selves up for failure with passions and feelings that are from the false expectations of the world and not from God. (repeat) In the materialistic competitive climate of our society, how many people do we know who dream, not to live to please and serve God with all their heart, but rather dream to become rich and important.
People set their selves up for failure when they dream to make millions, when they struggle for the wrong things, and when life hits them with disillusionments, the loss of a job, the death of someone, a divorce, they often change becoming cold, abusive, and insulting to others. James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5. If you are disillusioned today and don’t see your surroundings being all of what you expected them to be, you are not suffering alone. Consider Jesus’ disillusionments. Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Jesus had only had 3 and half years to train a group of gruff misfits to fulfill God’s mission of spreading the Kingdom, and look what happened! Jesus depended of them to establish this new way of life, a pure counter-culture evangelizing community living as an example of God’s love and peace: the kingdom of God on earth. And up to the last minute it seemed they were just not catching on! When He was getting ready to die, could Jesus see his follower’s dedication and the volunteer laying down of their lives to the cause?
No! His right-hand man denied him, his treasurer betrayed him, all the rest of His followers abandoned him! At His cross was only his mother and possibly a few other faithful ones! How does the Son of God pour out his blood in tortuous pain and at the same time endure the pain of not being supported by those He taught, loved, and healed? Now that must be disillusionment to the “nth” degree!
6. But was God or Jesus disappointed in the end with his investment in humanity? No! Peter rose up in power a short time later to preach and his message saved 3,000 one day and 5,000 on another! And today 2 billion Christians exist!
The rest of the disillusioned disciples transformed and radically changed and travelled far away to preach about the Messiah, the savior of the world, Jesus the Christ! Most of them got killed preaching Jesus as well! So look at the good fruit!
Years later many people of the pagan murderous debauched Roman world renounced their false worship of worthless gods for Christianity. The world’s conditions did slowly get better over the centuries in many ways due to Jesus’ influence. The murderous Vikings slowly converted as well. Later, the Renascence years serve as an example of more of God’s truth awakening His intelligence in mankind through science, math, art, and theology.
7. Our deception and disillusionment with human life cannot be compared to that of Jesus and of God’s! We have to conform to being happy with the little things and the faithful few that make life worth living! Consider how God is made happy by what Jesus did. Isa 53:10 (Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin), he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Jesus focused on the faithful few who chose Him. John 17: 6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
John 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
8. I have had to endure many disillusionments in my life. I have even prayed that God would take my life several times! Have you ever prayed to die? Be honest, life is hard! Sometimes we have to ask the Lord to forgive our desire to want to give up! Deep inside you and I know it is wrong and an attack of Satan to deceive us so he can get us to die to prevent all the good we could keep on doing for God.
Jeremiah preached his entire life never seeing any one repent and then he had to endure the consequences of this evil, the enslavement of his people as recorded in Lamentations. Read that and you will discover what discontentment looks like.
Job is another one who prayed to die when discouraged by his afflictions. I have been down like him, and you? At times I have been EXTREMELY frustrated that the local people would not listen and convert to God. But every time I was discouraged, God helped me through the trials by inspiring something wonderful to happen giving me a purpose to live for. God gave me a wife when I was lonely and angry with the stubborn Bolivians; God gave me 5 wonderful kids as well. God gave me many beautiful friends when I needed to help me educate my son that was born deaf. God opened many doors and supplied many places for our family live despite being in the midst of desperation with no immediate job or money.
9. So if in life you are disillusioned with people, disillusioned by your own expectations of greater things in life, disillusioned that God seems to not do what you want, cheer up to know God is about to do something good in your life! Consider how Jesus suffers alongside you! He will be your strength, He can be your hope, He can fill you with the Holy Spirit so you want to live and face tomorrow. He gives you and I purpose, He clears our minds, and makes our hearts feel His reality, not the deception in our own hearts.
In the old days of Israel when God freed them from the oppressors they were made glad. The day will come when you and I will pass on out of this world of oppressions and we will see heaven and you will be elated with bliss! Psalm 126:2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. 3 The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
It is a fact, while on earth in this weak body, our flesh and circumstances can only offer us a limited amount of happiness. The human spirt will always be restless and frustrated so it is imperative we find rest in God, in His trust. Only Jesus offers us peace. John 14:27Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Let God replace your all that is in your heart and emotions with His plan! He encourages and calms, He gives us a purpose and reason to live!
