EMOTIONAL REVIEW - by Dee Teal
Walking the Thin Line of Frustration
We’ve all felt it, haven’t we? That yawning gap between expectation and reality. Waking up one morning with the realisation that our circumstances are not what we planned or not what we think we deserve. It can be a disturbing thought that time and season, humanity and maybe even divinity appear to work against us, leaving us feeling as though our only relief is to tear our hair out and scream.
What is your frustration? If an issue is big enough for you to be sitting here thinking this through, it is important enough for you to begin devising a strategy to alleviate it. It is healthy to examine and compare our expectations against the reality. The situation may not be as hopeless as you feel it is. At times our perspective can be changed with just a few simple alterations in our thoughts or actions.
Once you have an honest look at where you are at it is so much easier to start planning the way forward, even if it means a trip to a counsellor to sort out that recurring emotional issue or to a budget advisor to reassess your financial situation. Often there are one or two simple little steps that can get the process of closing the gap underway.
However, sometimes our frustration cannot be resolved that simply and we find ourselves still looking into an uncrossable chasm between dream and reality. Take the example of a dancer whose sole desire is to be principal in a company, and who finds herself repeatedly overlooked for the lead role. While she may have done everything within her ability to reach her goal, she lacks a vital skill or a spark. Her dream remains unfulfilled, and she must either accept that she may never take centrestage, or spend the rest of her career slowly dying inside.
It is a strong woman who can look expectation in the face and say “I am making you conform to me.” Now, her reality is that to be anywhere in that production, doing her utmost with her gift of dance, is to be living the dream. Now, her sense of achievement is not just in the dancing, but in the strengthening of her character as she examines the motivations and desires that sought glory instead of blooming where she was planted.
Sadly, we don’t always realise that we have the power and a choice to rise above our disappointment and dispel the frustration. We can choose to close the expectation gap by simply lowering our expectation rather than wait for the circumstances to catch up. This is the space where character is formed.
It’s a controversial position: we’re conditioned to hearing that God gives us our dreams, and encouraged to have every expectation that they will come to pass. Don’t get me wrong, I believe this to be true, but I also believe that our humanity can frustrate the plans of God. Our dreams can become tainted with the world’s expectations and we get caught up in having our value tied to the things, the dreams, to success, instead of firmly rooted and established in Christ
Sometimes we can do nothing but wait on God for resolution of our expectation gap. These can be some of the most uncomfortable times in our life unless we stand firmly on the certainty from Scripture that God is faithful. His Word is the resource from which we can find the examples of others before us who have stood up to the frustrations of life, some of whom even died without seeing the promise come to pass. Drawing closer to Him, we can find our load is lifted simply by His presence.
We all have dreams that are still unfulfilled. Some are new dreams, some are old ones. and while I have days where I shake my fist at God and ask him “Why?” I know this to be true - I know my God is faithful.
I know so because it says so in Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”. I know that because my certainty is in the faithfulness of God, all hell can break loose and I will stand, because the promises of God will stand. I can live with a gap between my circumstances and my dreams.
Put your hope and trust in God, get acquainted with Him through His Word and search out those signature scriptures that make it possible to believe that He hasn’t forgotten. Hebrews 10:35-36 “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised."
Habakkuk 2:3 tells us: “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
Search out those who have gone before (Heb 6:12) and who have lived through the trying times. Draw from their experience, the godly men and women who are leaders and teachers and solid members of the congregation, who have been through their share of the difficult times. Draw from their experience and their strength. Do not be so proud as to think that you are the only one who has been here. You are not the first, and you will not be the last, and in days to come you will be able to impart what you have learned to those who come after you… if you stay the course and go the distance without losing heart.
