The Challenge of Disappointment

Ezekiel 19:5

Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

God uses a parable of a lioness with her whelps to teach a valuable lesson on dealing with disappointment. This lioness took one of her whelps and trained it to devour prey and to be the lion that could provide for the whole pack. That young lion went out and devoured many prey, but one day that lion was taken in a pit by men and killed.

This lioness could easily have become discouraged and quit, but instead of letting the failure and disappointment cause her to quit, she took another whelp and trained it to devour prey. This lioness allowed disappointment to become a challenge to train another whelp to do what the first whelp failed to do.

The ministry is filled with disappointment. You spend much time investing in someone, and there seems to be hope with that person, but they drop off and go the way of sin or the world, and all the efforts you put into that person can bring great disappointment. Instead of letting the disappointment of someone not making it spiritually, let that disappointment challenge you to find another person you can invest your life in by training them to be what you intended the first person to do.

This truth reminds me of Samuel. Samuel invested much time in Saul. For many years, Saul brought much joy to Samuel’s life by doing right, but eventually Saul also brought much disappointment to Samuel’s life when he failed. For a short time, Samuel lived a life of mourning until God came to him and commanded him to take up his horn and anoint another person to be king. Samuel taking the challenge to anoint another person became his greatest victory in his life as he anointed David to be king, and David became the greatest king in Israel’s history.

My friend, you will find many that you invest your life in will seem to fail, and if you are not careful, you will let their quitting or failure cause you to mourn in discouragement to no avail. Satan would want you to let the discouragement caused by those you invested in to stop you, but you must accept that your investment was not a total failure. Let me remind you that the person you invested in did serve God for some time. Though they may not be serving God right now, they produced for some time. The fact that they produced for a short time means you did not fail. Your investment produced others that got saved or are serving God.

Moreover, when someone you invested in disappoints you, take that as a challenge to find someone else you can invest in. Never stop investing your life in others, because someone will turn out for good if you keep investing in people. So, one has quit and gone the way of the world, find another person and invest in them.

Don't forget that investing brings many disappointments, but it only takes one great investment to do something great for God to make all your investments worth the effort. One failure that you invested in does not make your investment in lives a failure. There are likely many who are still doing right. Don't despair when someone you invested in fails at what you trained them to do; rather, take their failure as a challenge to train someone else to do something for God.