All of us experience disappointment and frustration. It's a result of having expectations and those expectations not being met. As a man in my early 30s, I vividly recall the last 2-3 years of my tenure at an architectural firm here in Jackson. I was extremely disappointed in so much (multifaceted) of what that job represented to me at that point in time, and in fact, I was also using that disappointment as an excuse / fuel to sin (in the form of chronic lust via Internet porn use).
But too, combined with all this, was how circumstantially I'd found myself tempted to sin (at work). Therefore, all of that made for a very challenging few years there at that particular place of employment.
As a result of all this, I knew I needed to move on. So much so, in fact, that I even looked (& prepared) for an entirely new vocation away from architecture entirely.
And this is where disappointment and frustration can be productive, helpful tools of God, teaching and guiding us through firsthand experience.
From there, a state government job came to fruition, and though it was far from perfect, I banked my appreciation of my new job on what I absolutely did not miss from my previous one. And this is how disappointment / frustration should and certainly can work to one's advantage.
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But what of those individuals who tend to stay within a consistent loop of disappointment / frustration? Perhaps pertaining to far more than their work. What if this bent towards disappointment / frustration revolves around many, if not all, of the relationships they are part of? Also, what if it applied to their church? Their marriage? And so forth.
Over the past few decades, we've come to be more and more dependent / expectant of the ubiquity of customization - down to every minutiae - relative to every aspect of our lives. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the people we interact with to the gender / hair / eye color of the child (invitro fertilization) we choose to parent. And this is all quite gee whiz, but what comes alongside all of this opportunity for customization also comes two things. One, the tendency to be disenfranchised quite easily - with all manner of things, and two, the powerfully impressionable notion that IT'S ALL ABOUT MY NEEDS / MY DESIRES / MY WANTS and how they're specifically being met.
Thusly creating some men who tend to gravitate towards disappointment / frustration as their default. All the freaking time. Kinda like having a toddler's outlook.
Therefore, these cyclical feelings of disappointment / frustration become the norm for them (& everyone they interact with), therefore circumstantial maturation may be thwarted due to this juvenile outlook regarding just about everything.
As such, for those of us who endear towards these individuals - friends / spouses / children, we're put in a tough spot. For we know if we question this temperamental cycle of disappointment / frustration, we may very well be labeled reflexively, and from there, cast aside as "yesterday's disappointing / frustrating mistake".
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I find that guys who're within the camp that I've described above are often habitual justifiers relative to porn, drug, alcohol usage because of this predisposition towards disappointment / frustration.
I hurt to see guys - seemingly programmed by our few decades past gee whiz culture - to have a modus operandi as such.
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Yesterday, I had a friend ask me over lunch if I'd take the opportunity - if given - to have my homosexual urges removed forever. This is a difficult question to both ask and answer. I told him no, I wouldn't. And my rationale for that choice is twofold. Firstly, I've already asked repeatedly (when I was a teenager), and they didn't cease to be. Secondly, as a result of that, it taught me to build upon that particular long-term disappointment / frustration, changing my outlook permanently.
And what I mean by that is recognizing how particularly wonderful being burdened / neutered - so to speak - truly can be. For you learn to trust in Christ to carry your brokenness both figuratively and literally (at times), and as a result it serves as a constant reminder of why we were called to be Christians in the first place (to surrender ourselves wholeheartedly & in turn serve others in lieu of ourselves).
From there, situations / individuals who end up not meeting my / our expectations, I find, are given more grace than they otherwise would be. For I too was / am shown grace that originated initially in me being lassoed in by the gospel of Jesus Christ in tandem with my conviction relative to my chronic sin.
In closing, one other positive attribute to being consistently disabled by some version of a spiritual thorn is how it forces you / us to make peace with your pain. Oftentimes, I believe, those who're predisposed to disappointment / frustration seem to be hyper-sensitive to discomfort / pain, and therefore tend to look immediately for some version of an escape in tandem with chronic complaining.
I'm not sure where this hyper sensitivity comes from, but it reeks of immaturity.
May God help us all to properly differentiate between fully communicative (& therefore) helpful disappointment / frustration and that which is simply a kneejerk reaction to circumstances that bring us / take us into a season not necessarily of our choosing.
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