We all have dreams and plans, along with a general idea of how we think things ought to go in our life.  We all know that there are times when life takes a different turn than we had hoped.  We may see our retirement account melting away under the current adverse market, we may find our job being dissolved, when we are past the age of easy job finding, or we may get a jolting diagnosis from the doctor, just when we thought we were beginning to get control of some things.  On and on the list could go, but the truth is, there are times when we face great disappointment.

First, to rebound from disappointment, we must accept completely that God knows and cares about our situation.  He did not cause adversity in our life.  Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly.  It is the devil, who is the thief who has come to steal, kill, and destroy.  We live in a sin-cursed world, and bad things do happen.  It may very well be that we have made some bad choices, and the adversity in our life has come as a result of those choices.  I remember one man who was in the hospital with lung cancer, after a lifetime of smoking, and he looked at me and said, “I know the Lord will not put more on you than you can stand.”  Well, the Lord did not put that on him.  He put it on himself by direct disobedience to the teachings of God’s word, concerning how we are to care for our physical bodies.  Yet, in spite of bad doings, God is good, and His mercy endures forever.  Even when we have done it to ourselves, God loves us and can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

We also need to understand that God’s blessing is attained by meditating on the word of God, the Bible.  We must know it before we can meditate on it, but most people know enough to meditate on.  To be blessed is to be inwardly happy.  Not a superficial happiness, but a deep knowledge that everything is alright, because God is in control.  To be blessed is the God-given ability to live in the exceeding great and precious promises of God.  Disappointment melts quickly away in the light of the promises of God.

Practically every church has experienced times when the atmosphere was not exactly “the spirit of unity in the bond of peace,” as Ephesians 4:3 says.

No doubt, there are times that the absence of peace is due to a “church bully,” either in the pulpit, or in the pew.  We need to understand that God’s way of becoming great is to be a servant, and that each of us are to esteem the other better than ourselves.  We are to be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us. 

Since it is really not possible to change someone else, church unity must start with us, as an individual.  This doesn’t mean to always step back and give a church troublemaker an open road to do things that the majority of the church is not in favor of doing, but it means we would do well to check our attitudes concerning how we respond to these matters.  There are proper procedures to which we would be wise to adhere.  Let all things be done decently and in order.

Better communication is often the needed ticket to a more peaceful church situation.

One thing is for sure: if there is any place in this world where people ought to love each other, it’s church.