What Is a Good Bible Study for a Family With Teenager

Alice had huge, brown eyes and a sweet voice that fabricated me think of a little daughter. She wanted to talk to me, she had explained, considering of a recent physical problem she'd experienced.

"What kind of a concrete trouble, Alice?"

She stared at me for a moment, trying to find the right reply. Finally, with tears in her eyes, she said only one discussion: "Miscarriages . . ."

"How many, Alice?"

"Iii. The third ane was a week ago . . ."

Later on that, Alice was unable to speak for a few minutes. When she finally did, she was total of hard questions. "Vickie, how can you lot say God loves me when He never answers my prayers? The one thing I desire about in the world is a baby. Is that as well much to enquire?"

"God loves you, Alice. In that location's no doubt most that." "But if He loved me, wouldn't He see how much pain I'grand in? How much pain 'Tom is in? We want a infant more than anything, and we'd exist godly, loving parents. Still, when you wait around, everyone else gets meaning. Everyone! People who don't even want babies get pregnant and so kill them in abortions. I've promised the Lord I would quit my job and care for my child. I'd teach it to know the Lord. It's just then unfair. We pray and pray, and God doesn't hear our prayers!"

The Shadow of Disappointment

Disappointment comes in all sizes, doesn't it? Whatever time our hopes are not realized or our expectations or desires are not fulfilled, we feel disappointed. Disappointment tin can exist a passing emotion over a temporary loss, or it may strike powerfully when something permanently changes our lives. A major thwarting tin remain within us all the fourth dimension, shadowing our reactions to everything.

We all experience thwarting for different reasons. In itself, feeling disappointed is not a sin. How we handle it is the crucial issue. Disappointment is so common to humanity that it was hard to choose which biblical characters to all-time illustrate information technology. The Bible is total of disappointed people!

Think of the years of disappointment experienced by Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth. Calendar month later month, year later on year, they saw the evidence of their childlessness. Job and Joseph had adept reason to be disappointed, too, both in people and in God. Elijah the prophet expected the corking evidence of God's ability on Mountain Carmel would bring revival. Instead, it merely put a price on his head. He was so disappointed he asked to die.

Moses—A Man Who Understood Thwarting

If anyone was ever faced with a repeated disappointment, it was Moses. In infancy he was rescued from expiry by the faith of his parents and the ingenuity of his mother. God arranged for him to be adopted by the princess of Egypt. But he spent the first formative years of his life being raised by his ain parents. From them he learned of God'due south promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was taught that the Israelites were God'southward people, chosen to bless the world, and that God would make them a nation and give them a land.

Moses was never able to forget what his parents had taught him, even after he went to live with Pharaoh's girl, his foster mother, in the palace. This double identity must take caused him a smashing bargain of tension. As he grew, he saw the Hebrew slaves struggling under terrible chains while he lived luxuriously, enjoying all the privileges of royalty. Finally, Moses tried to do something to help his people.

"When Moses was forty years onetime, he decided to visit his young man Israelites. He saw one of them beingness mistreated past an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him past killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, simply they did not" (Acts 7:23-25).

Many years before God called him to practise so, Moses longed to be a deliverer of his people. He was willing to use his power and influence to alter their desperate situation. Just they rejected him. In fact, he had to flee for his life from Egypt to live in the backside of the desert for another xl years after the murder incident. Talk nigh disappointment!

Two Primal Reasons for Disappointment

Moses had two reasons to be disappointed. Starting time, he was disappointed in people—considering his expectations that his people would understand what he wanted to practice for them and would have him were non fulfilled.

2nd, he was disappointed in his circumstances. Afterwards years of privilege and education in Egypt, he certainly had never dreamed that he would spend the rest of his life tending sheep in a desert. What a discouraging future!

Today, nosotros get disappointed for precisely the same 2 reasons. When we set our hearts on people or on circumstances, nosotros are commonly disappointed. God wants united states of america to set our hearts only on Him. He wants us to trust in His goodness, even in the midst of our deepest disappointments.

Moses was leading a flock of sheep effectually the Sinai wilderness when God spoke to him from the burning bush-league. What a shock information technology was to hear that this was the fourth dimension for him to do what he had once wanted to do—to evangelize his people from Arab republic of egypt.

"The LORD said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Arab republic of egypt. I take heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. And so I take come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a practiced and spacious land, a country flowing with milk and honey. . . . And at present the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I accept seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So at present, go. I am sending you lot to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt'

"But Moses said to God, 'Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?'

"And God said, 'I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who take sent yous: When you accept brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain" (Exod. 3:vii-8a, 9-12).

Despite the thrilling feel of hearing God's voice coming from the burning bush, all of Moses' self-conviction was gone. For the rest of Exodus 3 and half of Exodus 4, God patiently answered each of Moses' objections and insecurities. He promised to be with him. He gave him the power to perform miracles. He assured him that the Israelites would follow him this fourth dimension and that God would compel the Egyptians to let them go by His bully power.

Simply Moses was a discouraged and defeated human. Even God'due south wonderful promises didn't convince him.

"Moses said to the LORD, 'O LORD, I accept never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you lot have spoken to your servant. I am tedious of voice communication and natural language!

"The LORD said to him, 'Who gave homo his rima oris? Who makes him deafened or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go: I will assistance you lot speak and will teach you lot what to say'

"But Moses said, 'O LORD, please send someone else to exercise information technology" (Exod. 4:10-xiii).

This time God was angry; nevertheless He agreed to permit Moses' brother Aaron to accompany him and be his mouthpiece. So Moses and Aaron told the elders nigh State of israel God'due south message.

"Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses. He besides performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped" (Exod. 4:29-31).

This time the people accepted him and worshiped God, and Moses was encouraged. Things were working out as God had said they would. Now information technology was time to tell Pharaoh.

'Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, 'This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: "Let my people go, then that they may hold a festival to me in the desert."'

"Pharaoh said, 'Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and allow Israel go? I practise not know the LORD and I volition not permit Israel go" (Exod. 5:1-two).

With these words, the battle lines were drawn between God and Pharaoh. Pharaoh oppressed his slaves even more, until life became unbearable for them. And who was to blame? Moses, of course.

"When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to see them, and they said, 'May the LORD look upon you and estimate you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their mitt to kill the states" (Exod. 5:xx-21).

Can you imagine the disappointment Moses felt when he heard their words? He had told them God would deliver them. Instead, their circumstances were worse than ever. Naturally, Moses was disappointed likewise. But in handling his disappointment he showed us what to do when our ain expectations are non realized.

"Moses returned to the LORD and said, 'O Lord, why accept you lot brought problem upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Always since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought problem upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all" (Exod. 5:22-23).

Moses blamed God for all the trouble. He accused God of not keeping His promises. Just the important thing is that he came to God and expressed his doubts, fears, and feelings. God can handle that; He knows how we're feeling anyhow. When we honestly tell Him of our disappointments and heartaches, He can reassure and condolement us and give us strength to go on.

"Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Now you will run into what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will allow them go; because of my mighty hand he volition drive them out of his country' . . .

"Only Moses said to the LORD, 'If the Israelites volition non listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?"' (Exod. half-dozen:1, 12).

Poor Moses! He was in the pits! He was depending on his ain power instead of realizing that he was just the instrument in God's hands. God would achieve the deliverance of his people, non Moses. His faith had a lot of growing to practise, and God was very patient. He let him suffer disappointments because they drove him to know God, enabling Moses to trust Him to a greater caste. Of course, He does the aforementioned with usa.

We're all familiar with this story describing how God displayed his mighty power in the devastating plagues that ruined Egypt. Ultimately, on that outset Passover night, while the Egyptians mourned the deaths of their firstborn, Israel marched triumphantly out of the land of their long and cruel bondage.

God opened the Ruby Sea for them to pass on dry ground. In the days that followed, He led them with a colonnade of cloud and fire. He fed them with manna. He gave them water from the rock. He supplied their every demand. The Israelites heard God's voice at Sinai when He gave them His law to live by.

But over and over, the people complained. They were disappointed nigh i thing and then another. Even though Moses increased in his faith and dependence on God, the people's constant griping drained his strength. In Numbers eleven they complained about the monotony of eating manna every day. Again, Moses was disappointed and discouraged.

"Moses heard the people of every family unit wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the LORD, 'Why have y'all brought this trouble on your retainer? What have I done to displease you that you put the brunt of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I requite them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, equally a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? Where can I get meat for all these people? They continue wailing to me, "Give us meat to eat!" I cannot conduct all these people past myself; the burden is also heavy for me. If this is how you are going to care for me, put me to death right now—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me confront my own ruin" (Num. xi:ten-15).

Moses was worn out. Instead of a grateful, joyful people, willing to endure annihilation to get to the wonderful homeland God had promised, he had to play nursemaid to a bunch of babies who were never satisfied, no matter what he or God did.

Do you e'er feel disappointed and exhausted with the mundane routines of life? There is such monotony of doing the same thing every day: the meals, the carpool, the kids, the laundry, the shopping, the housecleaning. Do y'all have a job that is far below the skills you trained for? Do you have aged parents to treat, to the point that your own activities take had to be severely curtailed? Are your children demanding and too immature to capeesh your efforts? God recognizes genuine stress and will help united states of america. Look at the style God relieved Moses:

"The LORD said to Moses: 'Bring me seventy of State of israel's elders who are known to y'all as leaders and officials amongst the people. Accept them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand at that place with you. I will come downwardly and speak with you there, and I volition take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will assist you bear the burden of the people so that you will non have to acquit it alone" (Num. 11:sixteen-17).

Outset, God gave Moses seventy men to help him carry the brunt of all these people. He didn't punish him; He helped him. God nevertheless uses other people to encourage and help usa. But God wasn't finished. He told Moses to tell the Israelites, "Consecrate yourselves in grooming for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you lot when you wailed, 'If but we had meat to swallow! We were amend off in Arab republic of egypt!' Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat information technology. You will not swallow it for just i 24-hour interval, or two days, or five, 10 or 20 days, but for a whole calendar month—until it comes out of your nostrils and yous loathe information technology—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you lot, and have wailed before him proverb 'Why did we ever exit Egypt?'" (Num. 11:18-xx).

God gave the people the change in nutrition they craved. But He showed His displeasure almost their constant complaining and ingratitude by sending death with the quail He provided. For many, their first bite of quail was the last thing they ever ate.

Moses's Final Disappointment

Moses wasn't through with disappointments. How his heart must have cleaved when the people refused to go into the Promised Land considering of the bad study of the ten spies. When God punished them with 30-eight more years in the wilderness, Moses had to endure it with them, fifty-fifty though he had wanted to go forward and possess the land.

His worst and terminal thwarting came when he was forbidden to enter the country himself. This happened because of an outburst of pride and anger. He begged God to let him to become across the Hashemite kingdom of jordan. After all, hadn't he been a true-blue servant for xl years? Just God's answer was a resounding "No."

"The LORD was angry with me and would not listen to me. 'That is enough,' the LORD said. 'Do not speak to me anymore most this matter" (Deut. 3:26).

Imagine God forbidding Moses even to pray most it anymore! Moses had to be satisfied with a bird'due south-center view of the country from a mountain before he died, but he did not lead his people into it. There are some circumstances that volition never modify. We have to acquire to accept them and to keep trusting God in spite of our thwarting. Only in doing so are we able to experience life at its fullest.

David and Disappointment

Like Moses, David also experienced grave disappointment. When he was a teenager, God ordered the prophet Samuel to bless David to be the next king of Israel. God had rejected Saul as rex and had told him that none of his sons would be king subsequently him. David's peachy victory over Goliath vaulted him into the limelight, and Rex Saul made him a armed services commander.

Equally David's popularity grew, Saul's fear and jealousy that David might be his replacement also increased. Saul was determined to thwart God's revealed volition and kill David, and so David had to flee for his life. He was a fugitive from Saul for well-nigh ten years.

There were times when his discouragement was so acute that David's faith in the future that God had promised him vanished. He consequently did things that were wrong and foolish. At one point, he even pretended to have lost his heed. Another fourth dimension, he tried to run away and hide among State of israel's enemies.

"David thought to himself, 'One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the country of the Philistines. So Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I volition slip out of his hand.'

"And then David and the six hundred men with him left and went over to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each homo had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him" (1 Sam. 27:1-4).

To be condom in the land of his enemies, David had to play the role of a traitor to Israel. Worse, he had to deceive and lie to his host. David wavered betwixt discouragement and organized religion, just as we all do. He didn't understand God'southward timing. He didn't understand why he had to be on the run for his life when he had always been loyal to his king. Going to the enemy was not the right solution. But that'due south what he chose to do.

Sometimes God's way of doing things is really hard for usa. If He would only keep the schedule we've laid out for ourselves! If He cooperated, we wouldn't take doubts or disappointments. Of grade the truth is that the about important time for our faith to be sturdy is precisely when we are disappointed and confused virtually what God is doing. Despite David's lapses, God did for him exactly what He had promised, and when he was thirty the throne was his. He wrote the Eighteenth Psalm after he had been delivered from all his enemies:

I love yous, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer,
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies. (Ps. 18:i-3)

Information technology's easy to expect back and praise God for what He has done. But true faith believes alee of time what can simply be seen by looking dorsum.

Disappointed Disciples

Disappointment among God's people wasn't limited to the Old Testament. Jesus' disciples likewise knew what it was to be keenly disappointed. They had fervently believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and they expected Him to usher in the Messianic kingdom. Instead, He was crucified and buried. And all their hopes were buried with Him in that tomb.

The disciples expected Israel to exist rescued from Roman oppression when the Messiah came. Instead, the 1 on whom they had set their hearts died a criminal's decease on a Roman cross. Mind to how Jesus scolded them for doubting Him.

"He said to them, 'How foolish you are, and how dull of middle to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to endure these things and then enter his celebrity?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself' (Luke 24:25-27).

God had a much bigger program that the Sometime Attestation foretold. Jesus died and rose again to rescue all humanity from the chains and oppression of sin. His redemption was not but to bring almost a local and temporal change in earthly circumstances but a modify in their eternal destiny. Did you ever think that. Jesus can be disappointed with us? He was apparently disappointed with His disciples and their unbelief.

Disappointment: The First Seed of Doubt

Disappointment is the first seed of doubt that intrudes on our religion. Disappointment sounds so harmless, but it'south the tip of a wedge that will stop our spiritual growth and make u.s. bitter and defeated (more about that soon). Think of disappointment as a test permitted by God to run across if you lot'll continue trusting Him, obeying Him, and believing that He is good. That brings u.s.a. back to those two sources of most disappointment: people and circumstances.

Has a Person Disappointed You?

When we place our expectations on people, we are unremarkably disappointed. Has a close friend turned abroad from you? Has someone betrayed you? If y'all accept set your hopes on your children existence all you desire them to be, y'all could exist headed for a huge letdown. Did you ally, thinking your hubby would run into all your needs? I have to tell you something: No human tin see all of a adult female's needs, and no woman can run into all of a man'due south needs. God made us with a vacant space in our innermost being that just He tin fill. Then He will always permit u.s.a. experience disappointment with people so that we are driven to find fulfillment in Him.

Are Yous Disappointed in Your Circumstances?

If our joy depends on circumstances, nosotros are in trouble, because circumstances are always changing. There are as well many variables for them to remain the aforementioned. Did yous expect a promotion, and someone less qualified got the chore instead? Has illness interrupted and permanently contradistinct the plans you had for your family? Has a divorce you never wanted radically changed your circumstances? Thwarting works in our lives similar the wedge illustrated in Figure 14-i.²¹

Effigy 14-ane.

Satan has a strategy to invade our spirits and bring united states of america downward until we are defeated. The tip of the wedge seems and then harmless. Information technology is simply disappointment.

But if we let our thwarting fester, the wedge is driven in a little farther, and we experience discouragement.

Unchecked, discouragement because disillusionment.

And so the wedge invades even more than territory equally it proceeds to depression.

Ultimately, we end in defeat.

How do we prevent the penetration of this deadly wedge into our spirits? We notice the reply in 1 Thessalonians 5:eighteen: "Give cheers in all circumstances."

Thanksgiving—the Antidote to Thwarting

No matter what nosotros are going through, we can detect something to be thankful for. Beginning and foremost, we can exist thankful because we belong to God. If we have trusted Jesus Christ, God is our heavenly Father. He knows everything we are going through, and He is the simply ane in the universe who can make bad things work together for our good. So we can give thanks Him for His presence, His dearest, His blessings. We can rejoice that He has adept plans for our future and that we receive His daily care, no matter how night our circumstances seem.

Have another look at the wedge in Figure 14-one, and you'll run into that the best place to give thanks is at the disappointment level. If nosotros break the progression in that location, we won't go on to feel the other emotions that stunt our spiritual growth and drag us downwards to defeat.

We have to learn what the author of the Seventy-3rd Psalm learned. When he contemplated the injustice all around him, the success of the wicked, and the troubles of the righteous, he lost his perspective. Then he went into God's house and thought on God's ways, and he adjusted his focus. The psalmist realized that no matter how successful the wicked seemed to be on earth, their destiny was eternal separation from God. And, in contrast, he knew God, and God knew him.

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me past my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and subsequently you will have me into glory.
Whom take I in heaven but you?
And earth has naught I desire also y'all. (Ps. 73:23-26)

The psalmist had learned that when you have nothing left but God, you realize He is enough. Your questions volition non all exist answered. Your circumstances may not exist improved. The person you ready your centre on may not live upwards to your expectations, but God is the forcefulness of your middle and your portion forever.

The prophet Habakkuk learned this same lesson. After God revealed to him that Babylon would conquer and destroy his country, Habakkuk came to the conclusion that no affair what his circumstances were, He would find his joy in God. His words could, and should, be ours.

Though the fig tree does non bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive ingather fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
even so I will rejoice in the LORD.
I will be joyful in God my Savior (Hab. 3:17-18)

---

²¹ I'yard grateful to Dr. Paris Reidhead for sharing with me in a conversation several years ago this idea of a wedge-shaped progression of harmful emotions.

papederming.blogspot.com

Source: https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-14-dealing-disappointment

Share this post