“Cape Disappointment is Disappointing” by iotae (2006), shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Before we dig into the text of Proverbs 3:1-12, we must understand how disappointment works.
We feel disappointed when our expectations are not met. Sometimes we lose what we expected to keep. Sometimes we miss what we expected to gain. At other times we experience something we expected to avoid. Expectations infiltrate our motivations, and they come with a price tag: our happiness. They dash our hopes. They convert healthy relationships into needy ones, and they make people bitter and irritable.
Maybe you expected to enjoy your job more than you do. Maybe you expected your parents to respect you as an adult. Maybe you thought church would be more exciting, or that marriage would solve your lust problem. Maybe you expected to be financially stable by now. Maybe you just hoped to get noticed every once in a while.
In short, you wanted something, but didn’t get it (or you liked something but lost it). You feel disappointed.
When unmet expectations produce disappointment, we need a way to cope. Most people take their disappointment in one of two unhelpful directions: either in & down or out & around.
Tomorrow, I’ll illustrate these two approaches.
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