This comes from a listener question. And it's one that just about all of us have go through -- both personally, but also, as is often the case, with helping others navigate it.
Jamie Dew: Hey, everybody. This is Jamie Dew.
Joe Fontenot: This is Joe Fontenot.
Jamie Dew: And we welcome you back to our podcast, The Towel in the Basin.
Joe Fontenot: Yeah. So Jamie, today, I want to ask you a question.
Jamie Dew: All right. I want to give you an answer.
Joe Fontenot: Specifically about... We're taking questions, and I'm looking for it here. It's a great question. Here we go. How should we minister to those dealing with disappointment and loss? This is a listener wrote in and asked us this question.
Jamie Dew: As in, you just cooked a hot dog, and it fell on the floor, and now you don't get to eat it kind of disappointment, loss?
Joe Fontenot: So I did that with spaghetti one time, and it wound up on social media. That's one example. But also, what about, okay, so here's an example. I think a lot of people that have experienced this. You really feel that God has called you in a certain direction, and you've essentially put all your eggs in that basket because, hey, God's calling you to this. If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31. And so, all in. And then the bottom falls out.
Jamie Dew: It doesn't happen.
Joe Fontenot: Doesn't happen. So maybe God, maybe you were wrong. Or maybe, it's just a timing thing, but whatever it is, it was a huge disappointment and loss.
Jamie Dew: Yeah. I think that those two options are certainly options. There's a third option. Probably one all of us would decline and reject, and that is option would be maybe God made a mistake. And I mentioned that not because any one of us would be inclined to land there, and I would say, rightly so, we shouldn't land there. But it certainly, at least can feel that way, that maybe God, you directed me to do these things, and you didn't uphold your end of the bargain or something like that. That will certainly be the emotional response that a lot of people have. I mention it simply because I do think we have to acknowledge that. I think you have to acknowledge that that is often the way it could feel in those moments.
But option one, we'd be very strongly inclined to say, no, that's not the right answer. Surely a God that is omniscient, surely God that is omnipotent, surely God of perfect wisdom doesn't make mistakes in his leading us. And if that's the case, then at least two other major possibilities on how we could think that through.
One could be simply a timing issue. It could very well be that that is the thing that God is leading you to do, and therefore you should pursue it, but that perhaps the preparation is not exactly as it ought to be at that point. I can point to various things in my life. It became pretty clear as I was working on my PhD, that God was leading me, and which was very strange for me because I didn't grow up as an academic, but it became very clear to me that God was leading me towards academics. And I just began to develop this deep sense that at some point I would transition out of, say, the local church ministry exclusively and into more of an academic ministry.
And there was a season of time when doors would open up, or there'd be jobs available and things like that, that I took that conviction that ultimately I'm supposed to be in the Academy as a sort of an indication that this is it. Here we go. And nothing would happen. And so I can remember feeling that ultimately though I was right. God was ultimately leading me towards academics. And in due course, and in his due season, the right door opened up, and there we go. And then sort of the rest of my life unfolds from there.
So one major way of understanding these disappointments is certainly timing. We have to remember that, biblically speaking, this is not unprecedented at all. David is anointed as the King. And I think, if I remember correctly, waits 14 years now before he'd actually ascend the throne. Moses is going to be called to lead the children of Israel out, and yet there's a lot, there's decades of preparation that goes in that. Same thing with Abraham. We have to remember that God's not only, here's the cliche, God's timing is not our own. But I also think we have to remember much more deeply as that God has to build the right character in us before he entrusts us with those responsibilities. There's a deep grace to us in the wrestling with those disappointments and wrestling with those types of let downs, because then, and only then, can we learn where our contentment and our satisfaction really is found. So part of it could be timing. There could be deep things going on in terms of character formation that are going on there.
Another possibility is that, indeed, we have missed it. I can remember early on in my walk with God, just fully believing that I was supposed to go to this particular church and serve on staff there. And I was deeply convinced, and yet it did not happen. Looking back on that now, I can say that I was blinded by my desire to do that. And it was very clearly, that's what I wanted to do. And it was very easy for me to draw inferences from things that were happening and transpiring that very well could have been interpreted as, see, God is moving. It's not just my desire, but God is indeed moving.
But now looking back on it, it's just that. You can interpret it that way, but was I supposed to interpret it that way?
Joe Fontenot: Kind of like a confirmation bias.
Jamie Dew: Yeah, clearly-
Joe Fontenot: You see what you want to see.
Jamie Dew: That's not where I was supposed to be. That's right. We tend to see what we most want to see. And sometimes things don't go out that way, go that way. And so it could very well be that we miss, in those moments. In which case, there again, same thing for the one who missed, the timing was not right.
What do you do? You go back. You go back to your knees. You go back to your face. And not just a little time of prayer over this, but you go back to that posture. At the end of the day, I think that the key ingredient for us to determining the will of God for our lives, specifically, is not just short seasons of submission and prayer, but deep, prolonged seasons of submission and prayer, where we live our lives in that way, and he forms and fashions our hearts. So again, I would say, in either case, we just... Now maybe there's a third, realistic possibility of something, but those are the two big ones that I would point to.
Joe Fontenot: All right, so the follow-up, the rest of this question is, how do we then minister to somebody who's going through this? So this is kind of more of the pastoral, and it could be a discipleship, it could be any range of relationship, but how do we help the other person who's going through this?
Jamie Dew: Yeah. So in other words, maybe a spouse or something, that spouse-
Joe Fontenot: Yeah. Congregant.
Jamie Dew: In many ways, recognize that you can't fix the problem, so to speak. That there are always things outside of our control, and ultimately it's the Lord that has to open up those doors and close those doors. So don't try to fix the problem. Love and sustain them and encourage them in those ways, be a faithful witness yourself and a faithful presence in their life as to what it's supposed to look like.
So for example, if your spouse is struggling with this, then it will help for them to see in you a model of how to walk with God and how to turn our hearts and our affections to God for satisfaction.
Joe Fontenot: I think that's a really important point, because it can often feel like we are almost being hypocritical or false by putting on that face when we know that we're not fully, completely like that, but we're doing it for the purpose of helping them, showing them in their low point.
Jamie Dew: That's right. And we need it for ourselves, but we also need to model that. We need models. We are a people that will, whether we admit it or not, we by our instinct, we always look around us to see how other people are navigating the situation.
Joe Fontenot: Sure.
Jamie Dew: So for example, as we record this podcast right now, if you're listening to this two, three years from now, we are knee deep in the coronavirus.
Joe Fontenot: Yes.
Jamie Dew: Crisis. And all of us, institutions, churches, hospitals, sports leagues, for crying out loud, government agencies, we're all sort of looking around at each other in almost like this moment of collective dialogue about how best to respond, because this is scary, and this is difficult. And it's just our instinct to look around and see how this has been done.
If I were going to... I like to build things. The last home I lived in before we moved here, it was built in 1956. And I did a lot of the renovation myself. I kind of grew up blue collar. Well, there were, along the process of that, a lot of handyman jobs that needed to get done that I had never done before, but I had enough gumption as a handyman to try it myself. With that gumption and YouTube, man, I did a lot of projects.
Joe Fontenot: Done.
Jamie Dew: I can remember installing my dishwasher and my garbage disposal and all those things. I've never done that before. A quick little search, and what am I doing there? I'm watching how someone else has done this. And so we do need those models.
I think also in terms of helping someone and supporting that person, there's a tricky balance. Admittedly, this is tricky. It's a balance we often don't get right, but we should strive for. We verbalize it, and we strive for this. There is a tricky balance between, on the one hand, listening in such a way that you are genuinely sympathetic to the disappointment. And then at the same time, not getting so sympathetic that you just begin to imbibe and share in the despair.
So on the one hand, you don't want to, as the listener, take on the chicken little syndrome, and the sky is falling. You're right. Because then you're just amplifying and blowing out of proportion for something for somebody where they actually need help being reeled in.
At the same time, you don't want to be, how should I say this, you don't want to be so resistant to their perspective, and so unsympathetic to their perspective that you're treating people as if they're just being foolish and irrational, because those disappointments are very real to them. Those disappointments... Even if you can see your way through it on their behalf, the fact is they can't at that moment.
Joe Fontenot: I think this-
Jamie Dew: So walk that balance between them.
Joe Fontenot: For sure. And I think this is one of the biggest, or a big lesson, that I've learned just from having kids, where it's like when they freak out, my four year old freaks out about nothing, absolutely nothing. You know what I mean? But it's a legitimate freak out in her mind. You know what I mean? And I feel like you can kind of see that pattern everywhere in life. And I know for a fact it happens with me. I'm freaking out about things that other people are looking at, and they're like, all right, all right.
Jamie Dew: That's right. Yeah. I'm saying.
Joe Fontenot: Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, I think that's really helpful.
Jamie Dew: Yeah. Well, good. Please send in your questions, and we'll take a shot at it.
Joe Fontenot: JamieDew.com/questions
Jamie Dew: Hey, everybody. This is Jamie and Joe again. If you like this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts? That helps other people find it. And if you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to JamieDew.com/questions and send them in that way. And we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.