Bobby Bosler: I’m speaking to you today from Pennsauken, New Jersey, where my family and I are wrapping up a very encouraging, exciting time in New Jersey with family and friends. And in fact, as of the time of my recording, this coming Monday, we’re gonna be hopping in our minivan and heading back down to the sunny South in South Carolina. Where we’ve got several very important decisions to make. In fact, I know many of you have been following us on our truck and trailer journey over the last couple of years. And I believe as of the last time I talked about this on the podcast, we had decided we were going to do a repair on our trailer.

Long story short, that repair ended up being projected to be a whole lot more money than we felt like it was wise to do. And so we aborted that plan and we are now currently as of this time looking into doing a trade-in with our current trailer and getting a newer one. So we’d appreciate your prayers for God’s leadership and provision on all of that. We know He’s got us taken care of and that He will give us everything that we need to do His will. Before I get into the topic of the podcast here.

I just wanted to mention if you haven’t had a chance or if you don’t regularly visit theegeneration.org, I would encourage you to do so. Just recently, typically have a little bit more time over the holidays to pour into some spring cleaning or winter cleaning or holiday cleaning, whatever you want to call it, and to do some upgrades and enhancements that I have wanted to do for a while. And so you’ll probably notice if you haven’t noticed already, we’ve got a brand new header on the website, navigation menu and so on. Just this morning, actually, I clicked publish on a brand new layout for the homepage. As a part of the new layer, we’ve also got a new search tool that is under resources and search.

There you should be able to, or on your mobile it’s at the bottom of the navigation menu, you should be able to search for any word or keyword or whatever you want. And we will return to you anything on the website that has to do with that particular detail. In addition to that, We also have gotten a couple other new things. We’ve got a new about page that gives you a little bit of an idea of an overview of what the generation is of our history, our leaders, and different things like that. And then we’ve also got some easy ways to look at the different kinds of resources that we’ve got.

Of course, we’ve always had the battle plan for victory that’s topically organized, but we’ve also got in the header some resource types so you can look up articles. Sermons, videos, podcast episodes, and testimonies, and so on. I’m hoping to do some more with the testimonies. I’ve got some things flying around in my brain, ideas, but we’ll see how that ends up going in the future. I will also mention this on the podcast page, the podcast navigation menu.

Notice we’ve got our, well, We’ve got our featured hosts and the different programs and so on. Just some quick links to get to those. I know in the past it’s been a little bit difficult to get to say the satisfied page or whatever, but hopefully that will be a help and a blessing to you all. Okay, as far as the topic of what I want to talk about here today, you know, Christmas ought to be a time, frankly, when, and around the holidays… When we are encouraged.

It really ought to be a time when we enjoy family, we enjoy friends, we enjoy giving to one another, but often the holidays instead could be defined by this single word. And it’s really sad that this is the case, but oftentimes we can find ourselves, especially after a time of build-up, where we’ve been really looking forward to something, whether it’s a vacation or whether it’s, what am I going to get for Christmas or… Whether it’s that exciting break time that you’ve been looking forward to, where you get to get all the extra sleep that you’ve been lacking and do all the little things you’ve been hoping to do. And what happens is as you’re approaching the end of that time, you can feel disappointment. Disappointment is just naturally not having received what you hoped or envisioned or expected to receive.

Disappointment is a universal thing. Young people, you will experience disappointment many times throughout your life. Because in our minds we project how we want things to be. We project how we think things ought to be and almost always they don’t end up the way that we had hoped or envisioned or thought that they would be. And listen young people, there’s not a problem to be disappointed.

Disappointment is a part of being human. It’s a part of living in this fallen sinful world. But the real concern is how you deal with that disappointment. And that’s what I want to talk about here today. I’ve entitled this episode, Dealing With Disappointment.

You know, there are a variety of ways that we can respond to disappointment that are wrong, that will, in the long run, end up hurting us and hurting other people around us. Um, let me just give you a few thoughts here on how not to deal with disappointment. You know, one of the things that I find, especially in a downtime that we can do when we find ourselves disappointment is we can very quickly turn to trivial pursuits. I don’t mean to gain trivial pursuit. I mean pursuits and hobbies and things that really in the grand scheme of things don’t matter.

Often, when we find ourselves experiencing the pain of disappointment, We distract ourselves with entertainment. We distract ourselves with maybe hobbies or with just plain busyness in order to numb the pain that’s in our heart. You know, listen, I’m all about reading and being an avid reader. I’ve got my kids Kindles and they read a lot. I’m all about the constructiveness of things like Legos and so on.

But you know what can often happen when we find ourselves disappointment? We turn to those things. We turn to games, sports, YouTube, X. We turn to texting, viewing other people’s pictures on social media. We turn to maybe music.

We turn to a variety of different things that frankly in the grand scheme of things don’t really matter. They are not necessarily God’s will for us, but what happens is because we don’t want to deal with our disappointment. We just kind of ignore it and we do things that make us feel good. If you’ve heard this podcast at any length of time, you know one of the ways we phrase this is medicating the pain, doling the pain. But turning to these trivial pursuits can often be a way that we handle disappointment.

Maybe on Christmas morning you didn’t get what you really hoped you were gonna get. And so instead of pouring yourself into your family and enjoying this awesome time of year, loving one another instead you just kind of go off to yourself and do something that doesn’t really matter. Listen, we’ve played a lot of different board games, card games, and different things like this over the course of our break here. This is time spent together, time spent in fellowship, in harmony with one another, but when we selfishly pursue trivial pursuits, sometimes we’re doing that because we’re not dealing with disappointment biblically. Here’s another way not to deal with disappointment.

Don’t get bitter or upset. You know, oftentimes when we don’t get what we want, we can get into the blame game. Oh, you know what? So-and-so doesn’t really care about me. All they care about is themselves.

Oh, so-and-so, they just weren’t really thinking. And you know what? All those things may be totally true, but you don’t want to get into the blame game. Some people have said that bitterness is blaming someone else for your pain. And when we’re…

Experiencing disappointment, it’s so easy to point the finger and designate blame on someone else as the cause for our pain. Listen, there are many people even in the scriptures, many people in our lives all around the world who are currently hurting themselves by bitterness and blame because they feel like they’ve been hurt by someone else. Listen young people, don’t blame someone else. We’re going to talk about how to properly deal with disappointment in a couple minutes here. But in the meantime, do not let yourself get upset with people when you feel like they did not do or say or give what you think they should have.

Here’s another way that people can tend to deal with disappointment that’s not good, that’s unhealthy, that’s unbiblical is they claw, you claw to get what you want. You know, sometimes when you find yourself disappointed, you know, things didn’t work out the way you’d wanted or hoped that they would. What happens is you just get in your mind that you’re gonna get what you wanted no matter what. And so you begin to do things that are unethical, that are inappropriate. You begin to hurt people, whether it’s with your words or with your actions or how you spend your time or how you spend your money.

You can manipulate. You can be self-reliant. You can take matter into your own hands and force outcomes to happen. And can I tell you, that is never the way to deal with disappointment. Listen friends, you may feel like you’re totally in the right.

You may feel like you deserve what you wanted, but it is never God’s way to push your way into that particular outcome. Here’s another way that we can tend to deal with disappointment that’s unhealthy or unbiblical is we can give up in despair You know oftentimes what happens is when uh, especially when you get a pile up of disappointments I think most of us can handle a little disappointment here or there. But when you begin to feel like you’re in a season of disappointment or in an era of disappointment and you find everywhere you turn things just are not working out the way that you thought they would, that you hoped that they would, that you thought they should, it’s easy to throw your hands up and just give up. You know, to throw your hands up and say, you know what, if this is how life is going to treat me, I’m done with this. You know what, if this is how serving God is going to look, well then maybe I ought to just stop serving God.

Surrender gets me, then maybe I ought to just take my life back into my own hands again. And we can give up. Oftentimes, seasons and eras of discouragement and disappointment can lead us to what’s been called depression. There’s some great resources on the website regarding depression, and I won’t necessarily get into all of the matter of depression, but listen, young people, do not allow yourself to get into a pattern of despair or discouragement because of disappointment. Disappointment ought to be, and I know this is going to sound really counterintuitive, but disappointment really ought to be a cause to rejoice because God is giving you what’s best and not necessarily what you want.

I believe in the sovereignty of God. I hope you do too. I recognize that some people and theologians take the sovereignty of God, and they use it to dismiss the free will of man. I do not hold to that particular opinion or perspective. However, that being said, it is true that God is supreme overall and God has a way of orchestrating the circumstances of our lives to achieve certain outcomes and we are active participants in the amazing tapestry of His will.

And because of that, You have a way that’s biblical, that’s healthy, that is full of faith that you can deal with this matter of disappointment. So let me give you just a couple points. We’ve already covered how not to deal with disappointment. Don’t turn to trivial pursuits. Don’t get bitter or upset.

Don’t claw to get what you want. Don’t give up in despair. But how do you deal with disappointment? A couple more points here. You need to surrender to the Lord.

Honestly, if this were the only pointer that I would give you, it ought to be sufficient. The fact of the matter is this, God is in control and God loves you. And though we are active participants, there are times when God purposefully withholds from us that which we think is good, but God knows is destructive and will ultimately not result in our good. Surrender is releasing control, and it’s yielding to God’s will. You know the verse Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into thine own understandings, but in all thy ways acknowledge him.

To acknowledge God is to acknowledge that he is the one who’s in control. He is the one who has the right to call the shots. He is the one who has the right to route and reroute your life, as he sees fit. God is good young people. When we find ourselves in the midst of disappointment, the most spiritually healthy thing you can do is say, God, I do not understand why this didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.

I hoped it would. I thought it should. But God, I surrender to you in your will. I accept what you have dispensed as being from your hand. And I will yield to it.

I will trust you in it. So surrender to the Lord first. Secondly, get your eyes off of yourself. Really, the fact of the matter is, is that oftentimes, well, most of the time, disappointment, the reason why we experience pain from disappointment is because we’re selfish. We have our eyes on our own desires.

Remember, I’ve been saying this several times, what we think ought to happen, what we think, what we hoped would happen, what we thought should happen. These things are rooted in our own sense of justice and our own sense of value and our own sense of how things ought to be and listen God does not operate based on what you think his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts and what often needs to happen in these moments is recognize I am NOT here for me I am NOT here to please myself I am not here to get my desires accomplished. I am here for him and for his purposes, for his desires. And when we get our eyes off of ourselves, listen, when we get ourselves in a spiral of disappointment, it’s because we’re staring at our belly buttons, folks. We’re just looking at ourselves, navel gazing, consumed with this tunnel visioned perspective of what we want and what we crave.

We gotta get our eyes off of ourselves. If we’re gonna biblically, in a spiritually healthy manner, deal with disappointment. Don’t get in the self pity game, but get your eyes off of self entirely and put them on the Lord. And as we’ll talk about in just a moment, put your emphasis, your eyes on others. Not only must we surrender the Lord, get our eyes off of ourselves, but we also need to trust God’s purposes.

Trust God’s purposes. I’ve kind of already mentioned this. But in the process of surrendering to the Lord, I find it personally helpful to recognize that God has a purpose in not giving you what you thought you needed, what you thought you wanted, what you thought you ought to receive. And therefore, when even when you don’t understand, even when you don’t get it, don’t just tell the Lord, I surrender to you. Tell the Lord I trust you.

I trust you God. I don’t know why this happened. I don’t know why this didn’t happen. But God, I trust that you have a purpose in it all. Now we know that all things work together for good.

God is currently, right now young people, at this exact moment, even in the midst of your disappointment, even in the area of disappointment, God is working for your good. And listen, we must… Trust that he is. Believe that he is. So, listen, how do we deal with disappointment?

Surrender to the Lord, get your eyes off of yourself. Trust God’s purposes and then obey him in the moment. What can happen is like we said earlier, when we’re tempted to just give up in despair, what can happen is instead of obeying the very things that are right in front of you today, we just kind of sit there like a lump on a log and get paralyzed and do nothing. Now listen, I recognize this is a human, this is a human tendency. I’ve been there.

I’ve even been there just to be honest with you in the last couple weeks at moments when things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped or thought or prayed or thought they should. It was easy in that moment of disappointment to get discouraged and frankly to get paralyzed. But you can’t do that. I can’t do that. You can’t do that.

Focus on doing what God wants you to do today, right now. In this moment of disappointment. Instead of getting so wrapped up in, oh I wanted, I hoped, I thought it should, instead say, okay Lord, that didn’t happen. I don’t get it. I don’t understand, but I surrender to you.

I trust you. I’m going to get my eyes off of myself and onto you. And Lord, I’m asking you, what do you want me to do right now? What do you want me to do today? What tasks are on your task list assigned to me for today?

Because God I want to obey you right now. Listen, if you get your eyes off of wallowing in despair and instead obeying God, you know what you’ll find there? You’ll find God’s amazing grace. You’ll find peace. You’ll find joy.

You will find love in your heart young people. Lastly, the way to deal with disappointment. This one here I find as much as this may sound not so God-centered, it’s about as God-centered as it can be. Bless someone else. You know, one of the reasons why we’re disappointed is because we’re self-focused, selfish, self-wrapped up in self.

Just, we’re just full of self. And if we get our eyes off of ourselves and on the Lord, trusting Him, yielding to Him, if we get our hearts yielded to obeying Him right now, what we will find is there are lots of people all around us who need to be blessed. Bless them. Think of a way that you can offer words of encouragement to them, words of blessing. Maybe you’re around the house and the way you can bless somebody is by helping with the dishes, helping with the laundry, doing some tasks that nobody wants to do, but that you have the capability of doing.

Find yourself offering words of kindness and withholding words of sarcasm, withholding words of anger or tearing down, hurt and instead blessing with our mouths, blessing with our hands, blessing with our presence. Be a blessing to someone, serve others, and what you will find is as you give yourself to serve others, God will use that very service and the grace he gives you in the midst of it to heal that discouragement and disappointment in your heart. Listen, if you can view that your mission is to make every single person around you feel as loved as anyone can feel loved, if you find yourself, even though you were disappointed, if you find yourself giving yourself to try to resolve the pain and disappointment in those around you, I will tell you, you will be a fulfilled person, young person. You will find yourself not caring about yourself anymore. You’ll find yourself blessed in the process of blessing others.

Listen young people, as you’ve been listening to this, I’m sure you’ve probably identified a few areas where you have dealt wrongly with disappointment. Maybe over this Christmas break, maybe it’s been a pattern over the last few months or years. Maybe you’ve identified areas where you’ve fallen into bitterness, you’ve fallen into trivial pursuits, you’ve found yourself forcing your will or giving up in despair. Can I encourage you young people, take one step. Towards a biblical response today.

Listen, when it comes to these action steps, maybe sit down as soon as you’re done listening to this podcast and take some time and just tell the Lord, I yield to you. I trust you. I’m gonna get my eyes off of myself and onto your will, and I’m going to take a step of obedience right now. And I would encourage you, young people, get an action step today, a way in which you’re gonna step out in faith and bless someone else. And as you do, you will find God there and you will, congratulations, have biblically dealt with disappointment.

Listen, young people, we’ve got a great year ahead of us. I’m sure there will be challenges along the way. I know there will be challenges along the way. But trust the Lord, surrender to Him completely and depend on Him entirely. And I just think that you and your life will end up turning the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for listening.