disappointment – Gems of Discovery

God Has Made Me Laugh

“And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, [so that] all that hear will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6)

What if you have suffered disappointment?

What if that disappointment has endured for twenty, thirty, and even forty years, and what if that disappointment is so deep you hardly have a name for it anymore?

Will the ache ever go away, and will you ever be able to laugh again?

Too many questions, I know, but I have one more for you” “Where has God been in all of this?”

I’ll tell you where. He has been right in the middle of it, working out His purposes, and fulfilling the promise he has made to all his faithful followers: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose. (Romans 8:28 – NASB)

Sarah had waited till she was ninety years old for the fulfilment of the promise God had made to Abraham – that she would bring forth a son. As far as she could tell that promise would never be fulfilled. At ninety years old her hope for the fulfilment of that promise was almost dead – if not dead already. Better just learn to live with her disappointment.

It all seemed like an impossible dream, but ultimately, In God’s time, “And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, [so that] all that hear will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6)

We all suffer disappointments to varying degrees and for varying lengths of time. If you are a believer in Jesus, however, you don’t have to ask, “Where is God in all of this?” You can confidently declare, “God is right slap dab in the middle of it. The time will come when I will be able to laugh as Sarah laughed when God wiped away her disappointment and fulfilled her longing.”

God Has Made Me Laugh

© 2nd May 1992 – by Christophe Shennan)

God has made me laugh,

And half the things that brought me grief,

Have been God’s instruments

To bring me joy

Without alloy,

And show me that, at best,

This earthly pain is brief.

The other half of grief has been,

Unseen, a scalpel in God’s Hand –

To slice away the cankered growth,

Or remove

The groove,

In which my wilful thoughts do flow.

God has made me laugh

In spite of crushing loads

That I have borne, not always

With an eye

To lift God high,

Or walk with fortitude – His roads.

God has made me laugh,

By causing fruit to grow

When I had thought the branches

Dead and gone.

He brought me home,

And gave me more

Than heart and mind could know.

Please visit My website: www.christophershennan.ca
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Closeup portrait of a group of business people laughing by Richard Foster. Copyright. Used under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. We have made no changes to this photo, except possible re-sizing.

Dried up Fountains

I grew up on a gold mine in South Africa, with the yellow “mine dumps” outlined against the sky. The “dumps” were made up of the sand left after the processing of ore to extract the gold. Since cyanide was used in the gold extraction, the rain run-off into the lake below our “dump” (we called them dams) made the water decidedly undrinkable.

So, while we used the lake for canoeing and general relaxation (there was a trailer park along its shores), drinking its water was definitely not an option. No fish in those waters either.

We had two choices: either to drink the purified water provided by the town, or foolishly try to survive on the polluted lake water.

Spiritually speaking, we also have two choices: We can either try to find satisfaction with man-made solutions to life’s mysteries, or go to the very source of life itself – God.

People in Jeremiah’s day had the same to choices, and the made the wrong choice; they turned away from the only One Who could fulfil their every longing and took refuge in their own efforts.

“For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns
That can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13 – NASB)

You and I may not have dug any leaky cisterns today, but many of us have left God out of our lives. We think we can make it on our own. We imagine if we made more money, got a better job, became more successful, or pursued a life of fam – we would be able to fill that deep emptiness within us.

So what if we gained all those things? We would still be like a broken fountain that is unable to satisfy our thirst.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14 – NASB)

Fountain of Living Waters

Many try to fill their longings;

Their hunger for peace and true joy,

With the things that earth has fashioned,

And the arts the most men employ.

But the truth, quite plain and simple,

Is that nothing can fill the void

That sin has created in us,

But what Christ on the Cross employed.

He alone can fill your longings,

And bring the peace that will not end;

He alone has endless measures,

That your poor, broken heart, will mend.

Christ is the Fountain of Waters;

Living, and abundant, and free.

Christ fulfilled all of my longings –

He did it by dying for me.

Picture by Joanne Shennan – Used with permission)

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God Has Made Me Laugh

Dried up Fountains