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(I corrected several path problems on August 29, August 30, and September 1, including these selections: Which  Version?, Christmas, Images, Body of Christ Discovered, Hymn Midis, KJV Bible, and Spiritual Warfare.  Sorry for any problems; please let know if you find others. - Gary)

Maybe Next Year

But the Lord of the Lord came to me saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly and hast made great wars; thou shalt not build a house to my name because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. I Chronicles 22:8

Yet thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel. Deuteronomy 32:52

Life is full of disappointments. Talking about basketball recently made me think back to my days at North Carolina. Our arch rivals, then as now, were NC State and Duke, both located a few miles from Chapel Hill. I can remember one year in particular when it seemed we lost to State every time we played them. I was so caught up in hoops at the time that the experience of losing to the Wolf Pack left me depressed and moody for days. The perennial cry of the loser, of course, is "Just wait 'til next year"! I wasn't quite so confident after we were drubbed soundly several times in a row; "Maybe next year," was the best I could manage.

David was a man who both soared to the heights of fame and fortune and sank to the depths of despair and self pity. At the height of his rule, he committed acts of depravity worthy of the vilest heathen, not God's anointed, when he had Uriah murdered so he could have the man's wife for himself. He saw his own children resort to rape, murder, and rebellion. Arguably his greatest disappointment came, though, when he was denied his heart's desire to build a temple for the God he loved so well. That honor was reserved for Solomon.

Moses was also a man who died short of his heart's desire, when God forbade him entry to the Promised Land. For forty years he, and he alone, in obedience to God, had kept the rebellious people of Israel pointed toward the goal. More than once, he stood between them and destruction. With one single act of rebellion against God, he lost his right of passage (Genesis 32:51). The Bible doesn't talk about his disappointment, but it must have pierced to the depths of his soul.

All of us, who've lived more than a short while, can point to times when things didn't turn out as we expected. When I started college, I had my heart set on becoming a professor of history. I had the same kind of passion for studying the human past as I now have for computers. During my junior year, I decided what I really wanted to be was a preacher, and after college I entered seminary. That didn't work out, so I returned to Plan A, and eventually ended up at the University of North Carolina pursuing a graduate degree in Latin American history. When I got my Masters degree, the financial well dried up, and the job market for history professors dried up at the same time. I decided to cut my losses, and didn't pursue a Ph.D. These two failures to reach the mark have been among the very greatest disappointments of my life.

God doesn't cause us to fail, but he allows us to. Disappointments come when we try to do things on our own, whether they're things done in obedience to God's will or not. David's greatest failure, with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite, came first of all because he wasn't where he was supposed to be. During the time when kings went to war, he stayed home, and left the fighting to his generals. Despite being repeatedly disciplined by God, he failed to discipline his own children. God didn't step in to stop him from making his bad choices, but he did continue to love and forgive David, "who followed me with his whole heart, to do only that which was right in mine eyes."

The Word promises that "…all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purposes." (Romans 8:28) Even though things don't work out as we planned, and all we get of the bowl of cherries is the pits, God will still bless us if we persist in following him. If we delight in the Lord, the Psalmist wrote, he will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalms 37:4). Not only was David forgiven and restored to the Lord's favor, but God gave him a promise more glorious than for any man since Abraham. David's kingdom, the Lord said, would be an everlasting one; that promise was ultimately fulfilled in the Son of David, Jesus Christ.

Moses did not enter Canaan, but there can be no doubt that he did enter into God's rest, the greatest Promised Land. It was that same Moses who, by God's power and glory, spoke to Christ, along with Elijah, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Whatever disappointment he may have experienced in being denied entry to Canaan was long forgotten.

Someone said that, when God closes a door, he opens a window. I've experienced that truth many times in my own life. For every dead end, there have been new opportunities. For every failure, there has been greater success. I am who I am now, however flawed, because God formed and shaped me out of both the good and bad times that make up the fabric of my life. If life has disappointed you, and it will if it hasn't, don't dwell on what might have been, and pin your hopes on some future "maybe." Ask the Lord to work all of those things together, however bad, for your good. Ask him to show you where the windows are, if the doors won't budge. Remember, though, that the promise hinges on your loving him first, and realizing that you are called to server him. Only when we're willing to give up our "want-to's" in return for God's "need-to's" can we really find true joy in life. Delighting in the Lord comes first; the desires of our heart come later.

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