Don’t Dis Appoint Yourself

Last night I watched as 100+ Marietta Bible College students presented 100+ roses to Dr. and Mrs. Guiler as they sang the tribute song of Ray Boltz “Thank You.” Needless to say the tears flowed like rivers of grace down my face and this morning my heart is still full as I sit in Salt Fork State Park in Cambridge, Ohio looking out the window of the lodge balcony. I too was an honorary mention last night at the annual Christmas event and my humility kicked in overdrive thinking of the unworthiness. God is so good… and I am so not. Yesterday’s drive up was filled with sermons from the podcasts of Hillsong Pastor Brian Houston, last night I was blessed by Dr. Guiler’s Christmas sermon, and this morning they’re all heavy on my mind. I’d  like to tell you each one and tell you that I’m that deep of a thinker, but you and I both would know that that’s not so. So likely some of each of those sermons will spill into my blog this morning and hopefully bless you the way it’s blessed me.

The year’s coming to a close and I don’t feel the least bit accomplished this morning. I feel undone. I’m nowhere close the caliber of Christian I should be for the blessings I’ve received and I feel like Isaiah did in Isaiah 6:5 “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

I’ve seen the King present in my life too as He laid purpose before me and I stepped around it thinking that surely God meant that for someone else. Not unclean, unworthy, unfocused Shari. So when I listened to Brian’s sermon yesterday on “disappointment,” I thought, “Wow, that should be the theme song of my life. The queen of disappointment.” I have the continual feeling of grief for being a disappointment to self, others and above all God. But as Brian unpacked the word disappointment, God opened my mind in a way it’s never been.

God’s only appoints… He never disappoints. Dis-appointment is the hindrance or prevention of an appointment. Therefore if I am disappointed I’ve allowed something to stand between my appointment (God’s purpose) and me. While saying I’m unclean, unworthy, and unfocused is true, it’s also true that those inadequacies have been covered by the blood of Jesus. By believing those things to still be the case in my life I’m “dis-appointing” myself from God’s purpose, thus denying myself the opportunity to be used and blessed by the God Who thought I was worth dying for.

I tell my youth every time we meet that I want more for them. I want God’s blessings and riches to be poured into their lives and for them to realize who they are in Christ and what potential they carry within themselves because they’re carrying the Lord Jesus himself within them… and then I don’t live it myself. Glory to God what a message for us all.

Moses tried to dis appoint himself when he told God, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

After Jeremiah wrote my favorite verse in Jeremiah 1:5 saying “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” He tried to dis appoint himself in verse 6 when he said “Ah, Lord GOD! behold I cannot speak: for I am a child.”

Gideon who was told by God that he was a mighty man of valour then tried to dis appoint himself from the task laid before him by telling God how disappointed he was in Him. Gideon said “Did not the LORD bring us from Egypt? But now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”

Moses said “I can’t talk.” Jeremiah said “I’m too young,” and Gideon complained that God had left them in a bind. None seen the potential that God had placed within them. But thousands of years later, we read of them and their miraculous purpose.

What has God written in my book that I’m trying to un-write? That’s my question for us today… how have I “dis” appointed myself from God’s purpose?