Facing Disappointment
Walking on when things did not turn out as hoped.
Disappointment is quieter than grief and harder to explain. The job went to someone else. The relationship never became what you pictured. The answer you prayed for came back as a no, or as nothing at all. What stings is the hope you allowed yourself before it.
But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.
Luke 24:21
Two people were walking to a village called Emmaus, talking over everything that had happened, and the passage says plainly that they were sad (Luke 24:15-17). They had believed Jesus would redeem Israel, and he had been crucified. “But we trusted” is the sentence of people whose hope was real and did not come true. They say it to a stranger walking beside them, not knowing the stranger is Jesus (Luke 24:15-16).
He does not tell them their hope was foolish, and he does not tell them to cheer up. He walks with them, asks what they are discussing, and lets them say the whole disappointed sentence out loud. Their story was not over, though from inside that walk they could not see it. Being disappointed does not mean you were wrong to hope.
Today, say your disappointed sentence to God honestly, in the form the two travellers used: “I trusted that ...” Finish it with what you actually expected. Do not soften it, and do not add a but at the end.
Jesus walked the whole road beside them while they were still sad.
Luke 24:21