Disappointed, But God isn't Done | Ps. Maegan Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

That video is a tearjerker.

Well, happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the room and the moms online.

We're so excited that you're here.

And for everyone else that are joining us, we are thankful that you are here and you're prioritizing God in your life today.

Well, I'm Megan.

I got my better half right here, Keith.

And of course, she met Deneering and Caleb is in the front row.

But from our family to yours, we love you.

We know that you could choose any place to be at, but you chose today to be here with us.

I'm so excited to be talking about this message today.

It's something that I feel like so many people can relate to.

None of us are exempt from experiencing disappointment.

So without further ado, I'm just gonna go into the message and jump right in.

So I'm gonna give you a little background context before we jump jump into the scriptures.

We have Jesus who received word that his dear friend Lazarus is sick.

And what we know about Jesus is he loves Lazarus and Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha.

And you would think that when he hears that he's sick, he would drop everything to go and heal him.

Remember, he he loves them.

Why would he just drop everything to do that?

But Jesus' response was, This sickness will not end in death.

And then he stays for two days.

And then after the two days, he tells his disciples, Hey, let's go.

Lazarus is dead.

I don't know about you, but for me, the spelling Jesus sound confusing.

And then he says, Let's go.

He's dead.

I think Jesus knows us, knows how to keep us on our toes.

I really do.

Because he knows the end and the beginning, and he knows what's gonna happen next.

However, we didn't get the memo, the memo's not there.

So for us, I can only imagine feeling in a place of conflict when we feel like there's hope in one minute and death in the next.

So for you, if um, if you have your Bibles, I would love for you to turn to John 11, 17 through 27.

If you don't have your Bibles, there's a Bible in the sky.

I'm gonna be reading this from the Passion translation.

It says, Now when they arrived at Bethany, which was only about two miles from Jerusalem, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

Four days.

Do you believe this?

And then Martha replied, Yes, Lord, I do.

I've always believed that you are the anointed one, the Son of God who has come into this world for us.

This is a brief snapshot into the narrative that we're going to talk about.

Mary actually comes after Martha and she comes to Jesus and poses the same question.

Lord, if you had only been here, my brother would be alive.

Wow.

Have we ever had those moments we where we prayed a pair of pain, perspective, and frustration before?

God, if you would have given me that job, fill in the blank.

Lord, if you would have allowed this to happen, things would have been different.

We have that that we toll in with our heart.

And so today I'm gonna talk about this message, and it's called Disappointed But God Isn't Done.

Let's pray, Lord Jesus.

I thank you for today.

I thank you because you are so good, and in your goodness, you allow us to express our disappointments, our frustrations, and you take them with you.

Lord, I pray for clarity, I pray for encouragement and hope today with everyone who hears this word.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

This year, at the beginning of the year, I lost my grandmother who was 96 years old.

I loved my grandmother, and we call her grandmother Lucille.

And she lived a good life.

I mean, out of those 96 years, she prayed for people, she fed the sick, she clothed people who needed clothes.

Uh, she would make a way out of no way.

Prior to that, um, we received news that man, she may not have a long time to live.

So, family, we everyone try to come and travel when you can, as soon as you can, to come and see her.

And so we had family members who traveled down and were able to go and see my grandmom.

I had made I scheduled a date with my family and I to be able to go and visit her.

The day before we were going to see her, my grandmother's household got COVID.

So for me, naturally, you have to wait, you know, a certain amount of days before you can go and visit the family to make sure that you don't catch COVID.

So it was more like uh about a week later, uh, I received the news that my grandmother had passed away.

And for me, this was very painful because my other family members got to see them.

Like my aunts, my uncles, my mom, you know, they were able to see them, but I was robbed of that opportunity to see her.

And for me, I was just like so hurt, I was disappointed.

I prayed for an opportunity.

I I prayed to God.

I literally said, Lord, just keep her until I can get there.

But that didn't happen.

So I truly felt what Mary and Martha was feeling when they sent the news for Jesus to come, and he doesn't show up.

He's not there, he's not in the there in the moment where you need him the most.

And so what I learned through all of this is that disappointment doesn't skip people.

Like we're all susceptible to receiving disappointment daily.

So when Martha and Mary were in this place where Jesus didn't show up, and in their disappointment, I can imagine what they were feeling at that time.

Man, Jesus loves us so much.

He healed all these other people.

What about my brother?

You literally said that you love us, but you didn't come.

I had to go through two days of mourning and watching him die, and you didn't show up.

What do we do with that?

They were disappointed.

I don't know.

If I was in that situation, if I'd have been disappointed with God, I didn't process it that way when I did with my mother, but with other things, I'm like, God, do you you see me, right?

You care for me, right?

Show up.

We all have our different ways that we process disappointment and how we view it.

Disappointment is defined as a sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one's hopes or expectations.

Hold on to that word, expectations.

Disappointment is a bridge that leads to deconstruction.

Because guess what?

If you're doing all the right things, I've been praying, I've been fasting, I go and pray for the sick, I go and do this, and I do this for you.

But you couldn't show up for me this one time.

I'm walking away from the faith.

When it doesn't look like what it's supposed to look like, our lives, we can walk away from God and lose hope and faith that He will do things for us.

So we just deconstruct our faith.

Disappointment is the feeling that the outcome doesn't meet your expectations.

Man, what was I expecting?

I had this laid out, this laid out, I gave it before God, I felt like it's the right thing, and why didn't it work out?

I expected something differently, but this is what I got instead.

Expectation is an act or a state of looking forward or anticipating.

So if I'm anticipating something, but the outcome is not that way, what do I do with that?

In many cases, we are forced to wait for the outcome.

Expectation is the currency of waiting.

Who wants to wait?

Burger King says, have it your way.

Can we have it our way today, Lord?

Anyone who knows me, and there's many of you in this room that I have gone out with to a restaurant and food.

No.

Mute him, please.

Um, when I go to a restaurant, I am the one who's talking to the waiter or waitress.

I have to figure out there's about five things that I want.

There are, I'm asking, can I take this off and add this on to there?

And then can I have the side of this sauce from off this other meal to go with this meal?

So I definitely want to have things my way, like Burger King.

But it doesn't work that way.

It's in the waiting that we have to expect these things.

We have to wait sometimes.

We have to develop patience.

Patience knowing that God has our back, that God is gonna work things out for the good.

Patience for that.

So our expectation is what helps us to keep our sanity.

So if we're expecting all of these things and it doesn't work out, how do you pivot from that?

The pregnant mother, her sleepless nights, her discomfort, that's her discomfort that she experiences.

Man, guess what?

She's okay with going through that because she knows what she's expecting.

The college student who's working hard, working diligently day and night with their studies, they do that with the expectation that they're expecting their degree.

They're expecting that if they work super hard, they're gonna get the thing that they're looking for.

However, what happens when the thing that we did we worked hard for or we prayed for doesn't happen, and now we're disappointed.

When you're married and you're expecting the happily ever after, and now you're expecting a divorce.

When we get disappointed, we rethink things, we rehearse things, and we go opposite of faith, or opposite of the things that are positive, because guess what?

That's the safest place to be.

The safest place to be is in the part where we can't get hurt again through our disappointments when you get a promotion and you've been at your job and you've uh or you're looking for a promotion and you get overlooked for it.

Man, guess what?

I'm not is this a job?

Is this a job I should be at?

Should I change my expectations of what I'm looking for because this didn't work for me?

They didn't notice my value, they didn't see who I was in that moment.

When you have children and you have a vision for their life, and they go either in the wrong direction or it doesn't look like what you thought it was gonna look like, you reevaluate and you rethink.

Man, was I a good parent?

Did I do enough?

Did I fail?

When you're dating and you're single and you've been on the what are those Christian sites called?

I don't even know because I've been married for so long.

Christian Mingle! Awful.

No, it works, it works for some people.

Listen, we don't want to count it out, it's work for some people, maybe few.

Um, but when we're dating and we're putting ourselves in these environments, we rethink man, am I gonna have a family?

Am I gonna have the guy that I need in my life that I want in my life?

Am I gonna have that significant other?

And we rethink, man, God says, just keep believing, keep believing along the way, but we rethink otherwise.

Many things can lead to disappointment, and some of those things can be big or small, but even some of the small things can seem really big, right?

You get a flat tire and it's like the end of the world, it's like, oh my gosh, my tire is busted.

I'm the queen of meltdown, so my husband is my same one.

But even the small things can seem so big.

So the question is when disappointment is inevitable, what do you do with that?

How do you deal with that?

Do you allow it to consume you and define you?

How do you move forward?

And how you can move forward is by first acknowledging how you feel.

A lot of times they look at you expressing your feelings as weakness.

It's embarrassing sometimes.

Sometimes you can feel very vulnerable and don't want to share some of those things and some of those pains that can expose you, right?

So they tell you to hold it in.

And we know what happens when you hold things in, right?

It tears you up from the inside out.

It's hard to recoup and go back over to the other side where we allow it to stay and to fester inside.

Mary and Martha were grieving, and they expressed themselves to Jesus, they shared their emotions.

Lord, had you been here, he would not have died.

Lazarus wouldn't have died.

Can you imagine Jesus, the one on the receiving end, receiving that information from the people that he loved?

You hear them being honest about how they feel.

They didn't sugarcoat it, they didn't hide those feelings.

They just said, if you would have been here, things could have looked different, drastically different.

And so when we experience a traumatic or disappointment disappointing event, we can often try to explain it away.

Don't explain it away.

Talk about it.

Don't ignore it.

When we ignore it, it doesn't go away.

Guess what we do?

Rehearse it in our minds.

We keep thinking about it, we keep talking about it to ourselves, it doesn't go away.

When we close our eyes, we see it.

The situation is still there.

So the things that we have on the inside, we have to get them out if we want to be able to move forward and get healed in that area.

So not only do we have to move forward and acknowledge how we feel, but we have to grow from it.

This sounds good, right, on paper.

I want to grow.

Yes, it is.

It's the best teacher.

But when you hear that, it's like, no, I don't want to go through the hard things if if it's gonna teach me something, I'd rather just not go through that.

Simply put, what you go through is meant to grow you.

It's meant to grow you and me.

Those experiences are not in vain, but there are some things that we can learn in those moments.

For Keith and I, if you've uh followed us in the summer times, we're more active in the summer on social media because we love to grill and do all the things.

Uh Trigger Nation, shout out.

Um, but we cook all the time, and so while he cooks more than me, he's about to correct me.

Sit in your seat.

Um so for me, um I growing up, I love shrimp-fried rice.

I know how to make a lot of difference.

I love like I love doing breakfast.

I have special dishes and stuff that I cook and stuff, but TikTok Nation helped me.

When I saw this video of this shrimp-fried rice and it looked so good, I said, I'm gonna do this.

So they make it so easy because it's like a short clip.

They have all the ingredients in there that you can follow.

So one day I decided to make this meal for my family.

And I'm telling you, when I made it the first day, y'all, we had to, we had to make another batch the next day because it was gone.

Like they crushed it.

I was like, winner.

I was winning in my house.

So a couple more times I had a couple wins under my belt, and and I was like, oh, can I ever do this?

But then my Jamaican side kicked in.

And if you know anything about Jamaicans, we freestyle everything.

Like if you ask us how to cook our meal, we can't tell you.

It's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and this, a double of that.

Um, everything is like, you know, you just freestyle it.

There's no, you know what to add, but you can freestyle it.

And so one particular day, I did this with the shrimp-fried rice.

You guys, I'm horrified.

I still think I'm about to have trauma.

I think I need to go to the altar and release this there.

But I missed that step of the eggs, and I love eggs and my shrimp-fried rice.

I missed the whole step.

I added extra oil, I missed some ingredients because I was trying to freestyle, freestyle in that meal.

And let me tell you, my family, there was no seconds on that.

No seconds, nobody ate the leftovers.

I was so embarrassed, and I was disappointed because I loved chip fried rice.

How could I mess that up?

So for me, um, following the instructions, with follow instructions, you can't take shortcuts.

You have to walk through the process.

Even if you think you know it, what's the harm in going back over it and just walking through the instructions?

Sometimes you have to go through it and not over it and not under it.

You actually have to go through things, you have to walk in those disappointments.

Sometimes God allows us to skip that part, and we get you know the pleasures and joy of skipping that, and all of a sudden your miracle came the next day.

But most of the times we have to walk through those disappointments.

And here's what I know about Mary and Martha.

They were very disappointed when Jesus didn't show up and the miracles were happening.

And around them.

I would have been disappointed.

I'm like, dude, you're my bro.

Like, you can do this for them.

You are the same Jesus that can do it for me.

But that didn't happen at the time.

And what I know is that they learn from community.

Community was sent around them.

The community grieved with them.

The community was there to pick them up when they were feeling low.

Even further into some of the passages, the community was the one that rolled away the stone that Lazarus was in, and the community was the one who helped take off his graveclothes.

What community are you a part of?

A lot of times we're dealing with stuff on our own, you know, and in a place of being on our own is not a good place.

Are you choosing a place that it could be inside the church and it can be outside of the church, but do you have a place where someone can lift you up and encourage you?

Where is that place?

Because in the darkest moments, is this is where people help you.

I've had so many instances where I was in groups, or whether I was part of a church, or whatever, whether I was part of a community in a neighborhood, where I could go to someone when I'm having trouble and they were there to help me out.

They were there to pray for me or to encourage me with their words.

If we don't have that and we're doing that alone, then we can't get better in those moments.

We stay stuck in a cycle of disappointment and we rehearse that thing over and over and over again in our minds and we don't move forward.

We also learn that Jesus cares.

Jesus came, he finally shows up.

I mean, better late than never.

He finally shows up.

And he listens to their frustrations and disappointments.

Are you giving your frustrations and disappointments to God?

Or are you just holding them in, praying that he just shows up and works a miracle, but you don't say anything?

He wants to hear from you, even though he knows what you're going through.

Confess it with your mouth.

Everything is a confession.

Jesus, I was disappointed.

You didn't show up.

I grieved for two days.

Where were you?

Hanging out?

Healing other people?

Where were you?

So Jesus does that.

But we know that Jesus cares because Jesus died 2,000 years ago for us.

He said, if I take care of the birds and the bees, how much more will I take care of you?

So in those moments, even if we don't see it, we don't know if he's working behind the scenes or not.

Typically he is.

But we want confirmation in those moments that he's doing that.

And sometimes we don't have that.

That's when our faith has to kick in.

That's where faith without works is dead.

You have to walk in faith.

And if you don't have that, get around somebody that can.

Because everybody's not gonna feel that way every single time.

Sometimes you're gonna feel like, guess what?

I don't feel like that today.

I don't feel like praying today because God ain't answering anyway.

But guess what?

There are people that can pray for you in those moments.

There are people who wanna that can help break the cycle.

You can break that cycle through worship.

But just don't stay there.

Get a part of community, and Jesus does care no matter what you say.

So when you're going through all of this, what are the practical questions that you can ask yourself when you're going through these things?

Was I clear about what I wanted?

Was I attached to the outcome?

What did I think was gonna happen?

Was I realistic about my expectations?

How will I benefit from letting go?

That's a big one.

Letting go is hard because we have a vision in our mind for what we want things to look like, and this is what we want.

I want this so bad, but maybe God has something better for you.

We don't know that because we're holding on to that thing.

Will I benefit?

Um, excuse me, will this disappointment really matter six months from now?

A year from now, five years from now.

Remember that that boyfriend that you were crying about a long time ago?

And after five years, she was like, Lord, you saved me.

You saved me, but in the moment, it seemed like it was the end of the world, like you never were gonna find anybody like that.

And then you realize, man, my eyes were blinded.

Love is blind, you know.

I was blinded, man.

I thought this was gonna be my forever, and I realized he was not the one.

Could I have done something differently?

This is the one that I want you guys to focus on as well.

Could I have done something differently?

Sometimes it is because of our actions that we have this disappointment.

So we have to evaluate ourselves and say, man, did I could I have done something differently?

Could I have taken a different path?

Um, could I have made it clear to God like what I wanted?

And I just said this thing and he gave me that, but that's not what exactly what it looked like.

Sometimes we have to take responsibility for our disappointments because sometimes it could be us.

So with that, disappointments, with disappointments, we have to acknowledge how we feel, we have to learn from it and grow from it and bring Jesus with you.

Guess what?

A lot of times we bring Jesus to the big decisions.

What about the small ones that can turn into big things?

So for us, man, why don't I give everything to God?

And my path can be a little smoother, I can develop my faith along the way, at least I got encouragement.

Jesus asked Mary, where have you laid him?

And in this context, we find out that in the culture, they have about 30 days where you can make visits to the burial site.

And so I would assume that Mary and Martha, because they love their brother so much, that they did the same.

But when they visited this time and they brought Jesus with them, he changed everything.

He changed everything.

How often do we visit the place of the biggest disappointments?

We revisit it without Jesus.

We go through the door divorce without Jesus.

We just walk away.

We walk away from church, we walk away from our spouse, all that.

No, you need Jesus.

Like even if you divorce was the you know what happened as a result of that, don't leave Jesus behind.

Through a loss of a loved one.

Yeah, no one wants to lose their loved one.

But then when we're processing through it, are we bringing Jesus through that process?

You have a business.

Man, successful business people, like if you're out there, take Jesus with you.

Take him with you so that you can, your character and everything else can sustain you where you are.

And if it falls apart or it's for some reason that you still have Jesus with you.

What if we really believe that Jesus has the final word?

Take that for a moment.

What if we believe that?

He has the final word.

He said this sickness will not end in death.

He didn't say we wouldn't go through it, he said the sickness will not end in death.

Psalms 23, 4 says, even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

Psalms 34:19 says, The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to rescue each time.

Psalms 34:19

John 16, 33 says, These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace in the world, you will have tribulation.

But be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world.

He said that we're gonna go through trials, disappointments, frustrations, all this stuff.

But be of good cheer, because I am with you and I will overcome this world.

I will overcome that situation that you're going through.

But be of good cheer.

Bring Jesus to your marriage, your job, and your family.

Perhaps you're experienced disappointment, but I'm here to tell you it's not over.

It's not over till God says it's over.

He resurrected Lazarus from the dead.

It's not over.

Even when seems things things things seem dead, it's not over.

He has the final say.

Disappointment is not a dead end if we place it in the hands of the living God.

Something that's dead, let's place it into the hands of the living God and let's see things resurrected in our lives.

Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

And maybe you're thinking, man, is my situation over?

Is it gonna look any different later?

Maybe it's not over.

Maybe what you lost will be restored.

Or maybe what you lost will give birth to something new.

We've never thought about that.

It's changing your mind and your perspective.

Maybe he wants to do something different in my life than what I'm seeing for myself.

Nothing, this is my husband's, and I'm gonna steal it.

Nothing is wasted when God is involved.

Nothing.

Nothing that we go through, no circumstance, nothing is wasted.

Everything is a learning opportunity and an area for us to grow, grow in our faith and grow in ourselves.

With my grandmother's death, I felt like I saw some things resurrected.

My family and I, I haven't seen them for the past three years because I've been doing ministry and traveling uh for ministry since the pandemic, so I haven't seen them.

We now have a WhatsApp with all of our family on there, and there's a whole lot of us, y'all.

I mean, you talk about great-grandgrand, keep going.

There's a lot for us.

My grandmother had 12 children uh naturally, and so for yes, big family.

Um, and they all were living as of December.

Um, and so for us, now we're connected, and so everyone is encouraging one another, everybody's throwing in what they're doing, the engagements are in there, we're now connected together where we were separated, and it was took my grandmother's death to resurrect us being a more closer family, even though our family is so large, it seems so much more smaller.

In that moment, I was able to see at her funeral the many people who came who spoke so many things over her life.

They spoke so many great things, things that I didn't even know about.

And it gave me hope knowing that number one, she knew the Lord, but number two, she lived her, she used her life for the good.

She used it for God's ministry to bring him glory.

And I wouldn't have thought about looking at it in that perspective versus, man, I lost her body.

Yes, I'm going to miss her.

Yes, I'll still have moments when I get emotional, but knowing that she's in a better place where she's walking in her true healing is very freeing for me.

Disappointment is not a dead end as long as we place it in the hands of a living God.

What is your biggest disappointment?

I want each and every one of you to think about that right now.

What is the biggest disappointment that you're experiencing right now?

And we are going to leave that today at the altar.

We're leaving it today.

We're going to give it to Him and not hold on to it, not stew in it, and do all those things.

Here's what I want to say to you.

If you get to a place where you're stuck in a cycle of disappointment, get help.

Because as much as we can say, you take all these tools first, try them first.

Try digging in the word, try getting part of community, try doing all that stuff.

But if you cannot find a pastor, find a counselor, find someone that can help you get stuck out of that rut.

Because God doesn't want you to stay there.

He cares about you, he cares about the things that hurt you, that disappoint you, that frustrate you.

So for you today, what is that disappointment that you are leaving at the altar today, that you are leaving at your seat, so that you can walk out in wholeness and freedom in that area.

Acknowledge how you feel, learn from it and grow, and bring Jesus to your situation.

Let's pray.

I thank you so much that you care so much for us that you would want us to bring our pains and our disappointments to you.

You are the remedy for it all, you are the remedy for peace, the remedy for strength, for wholeness, for encouragement, and we need you.

Allow us to take you with us everywhere we go.

Allow us to apply you to the small things and the big things so that you can help direct our paths.

Lord, we trust you, and we don't want to do this without you.

We know that our plans are not the same plans as yours, and your ways are higher than ours, Lord.

So we want that for ourselves, Lord.

I pray for every disappointment today and frustration that it be left right here, that people experience freedom like never before.

Touch their hearts, Lord.

Give them freedom, break off the bondages on them today, Lord God, so they can experience a newness in you, a freshness in you, so that they can walk with their heads held high, Lord God, knowing that you redeem all things, that you resurrect the dead things in our lives.

We thank you when we leave it here today.

We give you all the glory and all the praise in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

First, can we put our hands together?

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