Hope When People Disappoint You

In Jane Austen’s well-known classic novel Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth’s sister Jane is shocked when the antagonist Wickham’s true character is revealed. “What a stroke this was for poor Jane! who would have willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in one individual” (chapter 40).

When we first began serving in full-time church ministry I found myself very much like Jane, believing the best of all people and seeing only the good; but the reality of doing life and relationships over the years in this fallen world has required that I adjust my perspective.

Everyday people disappoint me as I still sometimes go along expecting, like Jane, that people are actually pretty good at heart, but that is simply not true. It’s too easy for me to keep hoping in people and to forget Who my God is, who people are, and who I am.

I forget that God is the only one Who will never fail me. I must remember that He alone is good and holy and righteous and merciful and tender and compassionate. And even when I am disappointed in Him, I can trust that He has a greater good in mind that I can’t see with my finite mind.

So…why am I so tempted to look to people instead of God? Maybe because they are easier to see, and maybe because I’m around people who call themselves Christians, and they are different than everyone else, right? Aren’t we the “good” ones? We have the righteousness of Christ, so those who belong to Him should not be like the rest of the world, should they?

Though that is true, I still find myself disappointed again and again. Even, and sometimes especially, Christians don’t meet my expectations. Maybe it’s because I do expect more of them. But why? Why am I disappointed when I put my hope in people? I think it’s because I have forgotten who people are.

I keenly remember when this truth hit home to me. I had come home for the weekend after my first month in Bible College. I slumped on the bench in my parent’s living room, head low and feeling dejected and let down. I had only been around these men and women–the best of the best who were training for full-time ministry–for one month, and they weren’t at all like I thought they would be!

I will never forget my mom’s gentle question that lifted my chin, “Wendy, do you think maybe your expectations were too high?”

Yeah…I had forgotten that even Christian young people training to be leaders in the kingdom of God are sinners. And I still forget sometimes that sinners sit in our church.

I must remember that the family that sits in the back of the church, all five children neatly pressed and dressed and sitting still for the service are all sinners. This is the family where the husband and wife seem to have it all together as he works hard at his job and she faithfully serves at her home, raising the children and caring for their Pinterest-worthy home. Then it surprises me when they are the ones who call my husband in crisis because their marriage is falling apart. They forward emails to us from one another with attitudes and language reflected that are definitely not Christian. What happened?

I have forgotten that the heart of man is deceitfully wicked, that no one can really know it but God (see Jeremiah 17:9).

It is right and fitting that we show grace to others, that we expect the best of them as we would want them to do of us. So when I see their children lined up in the pew and the couple smiling at each other and their children, I know that they bear the image of God. But, like me, they need His grace. Like me, they have struggles and faults and failings. I can and will show grace, but that doesn’t mean that they will never surprise me with attitudes and actions that are downright wicked.

Then why is it that God doesn’t allow us to see that sooner in others, in the people sitting in our pews, claiming to be his followers? I have always told others that as a pastor’s wife I know more about people than I ever wanted to know. Our position carries with it a huge responsibility of bearing the burdens–and yes, sometimes the sins and its consequences–of others.

At one of the churches in which we ministered, someone in our church committed a sin that became public knowledge and shocked the whole congregation. We walked through that time with this person, and it was heavy. The weight of the sin left us feeling heavy-hearted and sad and disturbed and angry. When I thought about those feelings, I began to reflect on the fact that Jesus bore a monstrous weight on the cross when He literally carried all the consequences of every sin that every human being has ever committed or ever will commit! Oh, the weight of that!

Our finite minds can only handle so much knowledge of evil, either head knowledge or experiential knowledge. He alone can bear that weight, but He calls us and positions us as shepherds of the flock to carry the burdens of the sheep, and some of those come as a direct result of sin by people who are believers. People are sinners, and even redeemed people still disobey. We shouldn’t be surprised when it happens, and when it does God will give us grace to carry those burdens because of the cross alone.

The ultimate reason people end up disappointing us is because we forget that we are sinners, too. When we remember the truth that “Christ died for our sins” (I Corinthians 15:3), then we will stop placing our hope in others being righteous or in our own righteousness. We will instead fall into the broken, bleeding arms of the One who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (see II Corinthians 5:21).

Jesus died to save wicked people, of whom I am one, so I shouldn’t be surprised when sinners sin. Even me.

It just makes me stand all the more in wonder of the Good News that Jesus saved me, and it makes me fervently intercede for those inside and outside of my church’s four walls who desperately need that Gospel to change their lives as He’s changed mine.

 And I preach that Good News to myself every day. When I remember that, I’ll be disappointed in others a lot less.