I screamed in frustration. After five months of bliss, it all blew up in three hours one Sunday night. I found myself dealing with disappointment.
In 2022, the New York Mets, my favorite baseball team, enjoyed one of the most successful seasons in their history. After two decades of disappointment, that year was different. But on October 9, they were humiliatingly eliminated from the baseball playoffs. I had invested hundreds of hours watching their season, only to be bitterly disappointed.
Not everyone is a baseball fan, but everyone faces disappointment. We work hard yet get passed over for a promotion. We devote countless hours to a garden, and bugs ruin the crop. Perhaps we send an exquisite submission to an art contest but lose.
Accounts of Jesus performing significant miracles fill the gospels—from raising the dead to feeding thousands with almost no food. But Jesus is also concerned with the more mundane disappointments, such as not catching fish after an all-night effort. So, Jesus told the disciples to cast their nets on the right side of their boat. When they obeyed, they caught 153 fish.
Jesus does not always ease our disappointments, but He does have compassion and concern for us as we face them. We can come to God with our disappointments and requests, and He will sympathize with our weaknesses.
Have you stopped believing Jesus cares about your misfortunes? He hasn’t. He knows and cares, so take them to Him and receive His comfort.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com.)
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Matthew Cedar will graduate Dallas Theological Seminary with a ThM in historical theology in 2022. He hopes to pursue further education in church history and to research and write on history, baseball, politics, theology, and anything else that catches his interest. He resides in Dallas, Texas.