How to deal with disappointment

I think of Caleb, what he experienced, what he must have felt when he walked on dry ground with the Red Sea piled up on either side of him. He knew desert thirst but he also knew what it was to have his thirst quenched by water flowing from what had been a dry rock until Moses hit it with his staff. He knew what it was like to have his physical hunger satisfied with the bread from Heaven day after day.

I can only imagine the excitement Caleb must have felt when he was chosen to be one of the twelve to spy out the Promised Land. Caleb's time in the wilderness had taught him to trust God wholeheartedly and now he was ready to see with his own eyes where God had led him to. He went to Hebron where the descendant's of Anak the giant lived.

It took two men to carry a single cluster of grapes. Caleb must have been overcome with anticipation. He was forty years old and in his prime. He was poised to take possession of the land God had promised him, but there was a glitch in the plan. Ten of the spies brought back word that though the land was everything God had promised there were giants and fortified cities and there was no way for the Israelites to take possession of it.

Caleb quited the people and said,"We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it."Numbers 13:30 Caleb trusted God, Caleb believed God's promise but Caleb spent the next forty year not in the Promised Land but wandering in the wilderness.Why?

There have been times in my life when the choices of others has altered the course set before me. I have known disappointment. I have discovered time and time again  that I am not the captain of my ship or the master of my fate. What to do, how do I respond? To be honest my first response is usually anger. I have to wrestle with the fact that I do not live an isolated life, it is lived in tandem with those I love, their choices affect my life.

How do I live with disappointment, how did Caleb live with disappointment? There is only one way. When I realize that I am not the captain of my ship or the master of my own fate I ask myself, "Who is?"  Caleb had learned to trust God. He had learned that God could part the Red Sea, provide water from a rock and bread from Heaven. Caleb believed that it was God, not the obedience or disobedience of the people he was with, that was in control.

The question I really have to ask myself when I am disappointed is this,"Does God keep His promise?" My faith is strengthened when I read the request Caleb made when he was eighty five years old.  "Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day.  You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large I will drive them out just as he said." Joshua 14:10-12

Now, Father, I place my confidence and expectations in You and You alone. When I put my hope in You I will never be disappointed because in the fullness of time You always keep Your promise.