Our first summer married, John and I made the long drive with our very few things from Florida to small town Nebraska where his family was from. Our belongings all piled high in a trailer, we made the temporary move that summer so John could work for his Dad and we would have enough money to survive our last year of college.
Every Friday night we would make the short drive to the neighboring bigger town for our date. Running to the nearest grocery store, we would buy a pint of ice cream, grab two spoons from our stash in the glove compartment and find a free place to sit. One day his mom caught wind of what we were doing and suggested we go to Harmon Park. She went on and on about how beautiful it was and all of her great memories there. She exclaimed, “You guys will love it!”
The next Friday night, we grabbed our ice cream, parked our car at Harmon Park and grabbed two plastic spoons – the cheap white kind. We made our way to the perfectly square green space with a bench in the middle and one statue. We talked about how beautiful the grass was. The grass was green, but it was just grass. Since we were newly married and small town life was not something I was used to, I didn’t want to offend John and tell him that Harmon Park wasn’t that great. I lowered my expectations and every week that whole summer we went and sat on that little bench in the middle of the square of green with our ice cream.
A few years later, we were visiting his family with our kids. It was a slow meandery day and we wanted to get the kids out of the house. My mother in law said, “Let’s go to Harmon Park!” I agreed politely but was not looking forward to sitting on that same bench in the middle of the same square of grass. It was now impossibly familiar and boring and I could not imagine our preschool children thinking it was a fun thing to do on a hot day.
We pulled up to the park, the kids jumped out of the car and I started leading them to the same bench in the middle of the same green square of grass hoping they’d be entertained running around in the open space and not complain about being bored. Walking in the opposite direction , my mother-in-law turned and asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to the park. Confusion filled her face and she said, “THAT’S not the main park. The park is over HERE.” With that, we rounded the corner of a building and there it was: a park full of flowers, trees, stone paths, a stream that flowed all through it, rocks with large cutouts, cute bridges and a lighthouse.
Every weekend for an entire summer John and I thought we were going to the park, but we were basically sitting in the parking lot of the park. This is how it is so often with our faith.
We’re sitting in the parking lot, but God has so much more for us.
The green space of faith isn’t bad. It’s usually the first place we land after first coming to relationship with God, but then we start wondering if there is more. We can sit in the green space for years and feel quite satisfied, but eventually we become more and more disappointed. There is this desire in us for something deeper, something that goes to the deepest places in us, but so often we feel that this is a dangerous thought or that we are the only ones who are feeling this way. We silence the desire for fear that if we leave the green space, we will be leaving the faith. We lower our expectations instead of imagining that the God who created the universe can or wants to exceed them all. In our minds, the green space IS the faith. Just like John and I assumed the green space WAS the park. It was part of the park, but certainly not all of the park.
Like John and I at the park, we gloss over the disappointment instead of allowing the disappointment to lead to curiosity. If John and I would have been a little more curious, we would have found so much more. His mom’s description was accurate, but instead of assuming that her description was accurate and finding out why our experience was different, we assumed her description was inaccurate and our experience was what was true. The truth is, we were happy in the green space for a while. In fact, we had really nice conversations, but eventually we became very bored because there wasn’t much to it.
Sometimes we spend years in the green space doing all kinds of church things and doing what we know to do, but eventually begin to feel secretly disappointed. Shame begins to fill our hearts and we start to assume the things we read about the Christian life are either untrue, untrue for now, or only true for a special few. Sometimes the safest thing to do is pretend and repeat the cliche’s. Many have confided in me that this is their experience too.
Worse yet, when others move to the edge of the green space, we fear for them and shout for them to come back. Sometimes we even try to fence them in with dogma. Their questions, disappointments and fears are silenced and we just want them to be happy in the green space for fear they will leave the park altogether. Either we do not understand them or their questions echo those lurking below the surface in our own hearts, but God is big enough for the questions.
Some believe they are losing faith when they venture to the edges of what is familiar or what they already know, but in reality, this is what deepens the faith. It is true, some pack up, get in their car and leave having never found what they are looking for. This is what happens when desire and disappointment are misunderstood or when we assume disappointment means the truths we heard and read about were a lie, but really disappointment is an invitation.
I was at this place several years ago, but I actually found that disappointment in the faith was what ultimately led to a deeper faith. I loved God and was deeply disappointed. In that season, I clung to Isaiah 49:23, “Those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” God gave this verse to me and it was like a tether I hung onto. I began to assume that if I was disappointed, I hadn’t found what there was to find yet. If we’re disappointed, it’s not that God is disappointing, it’s that we need to keep looking, because there is something of Him we haven’t experienced yet.
Knowing this gave me the courage to step out of the green space and go looking. I never left the park, I just explored more of it. Disappointment in the Christian life is always an invitation from God to go deeper with God because He has more for us. This usually doesn’t mean doing more, but being with Him more. When we begin to see it that way, it begins to bring hope and pushes us to open our hearts to Him. We will never find Him to be less than we hoped Him to be unless we quit looking. There is no disappointment without desire and any desire we have for more with God was put there by Him in the first place. Our disappointment means we have desire for Him.
If you are feeling disappointed, tether yourself to Isaiah 49:23 and begin to ask God to show you what He wants to show you. Tell Him you feel disappointed because honesty with Him is where depth with Him starts. This may just be a sign your faith is growing! Disappointment is our invitation to something deeper.
For a really good description on stages of faith, read this:
https://3generations.eu/stages-of-faith