One of the greatest problems that any of us have to wrestle with in the Christian life is disappointment, when our hopes and expectations are not fulfilled, our prayers seem to be of no avail and, worst of all, when things get worse instead of better.

I am aware of a number of folk in our Church Family who are struggling with this at present. I myself experienced a real sense of disappointment 1ast week when I-listened to an interview with the prophet Bob Jones. His words about a coming great revival were very encouraging, particularly because of his reputation for amazing accuracy, but they also stirred the memory of the prophecy he gave me in 1989 that is still unfulfilled

The danger of disappointment is particularly keen for those who are serious about their Christian faith. We find in the Bible the revelation of a God of extraordinary power. We see in Jesus one who healed the sick, raised the dead and controlled the powers of nature. Moreover, He called us to share with Him in such miracle-working activity that gave us great promises of what we could accomplish through Him. He made statements like: "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you." (Luke 17 :6)

Many of us, when we made the decision to surrender our lives to Christ, did so in great hope of what He would do in our lives, and through us, in the lives of others. For a small few that seems to be their experience. And it is good to hear wonderful stories of the miracles that God is still performing today. Yet, for most of us there is a considerable disappointment when sicknesses are not healed, the dead are not raised, spouses are not saved, prophecies are not fulfilled, and problems seem to get worse, rather than better.

That was certainly the experience of Job. He not only suffered terrible personal tragedy, with the loss of all his personal possessions followed by the death of all his children, but that was followed by intense physical suffering. In his own words: "The churning inside me never stops, days of suffering confront me…. My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever." (Job 30:27,30)

When things go wrong in our lives, or when we are caught up in suffering there is often a temptation to look for some fault in our lives that may have caused it. There is usually someone around who will tell us how they overcame by praying or fasting or taking this remedy or that. Job had friends like that, and they were no help at all. Job called them "miserable comforters". What none of them knew was that God had already declared that there was no one on earth like Job, who was blameless and upright, a man who feared God and shunned evil. The suffering and disappointment that Job was going through was part of a greater cosmic struggle between God and Evil.

So with us, when we surrender our lives to Jesus and receive his gift of Eternal Life, our horizons are no longer limited to this present life. The hope to which we are called reaches to eternity and is not terminated by death. It is important for us to grasp this point, for measured in earthly terms, it seems that the Biblical promises of blessings are not fulfilled in this life. The righteous often seem to go to their graves in suffering, while the wicked die in prosperity.

Yet we are called to "take hold of the hope offered to us", which is "on anchor for the soul, firm and secure". (Hebrews 6:18, 19). However, this is not a hope which is easily seen, it is something which we grasp by faith, which "is being sure of what we hope for". (Hebrews 11:1).

The real focus of our hope, in the midst of present disappointment, is the eternal reality of what Jesus has accomplished for us through His death on the Cross. It is this alone, and not any effort on our part, which guarantees our ultimate victory. As Jesus himself said: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).

Yet, there is one further answer to disappointment that the Scripture tells us about. In Romans 5:5 we read "Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Our problem is that we often allow disappointment to turn us away from God. But if we turn back to him, give our hurt and disappointment to Him, and open our hearts to Him, then His love will flow in to comfort us.