God and the Discipline of Disillusionment

By Michael Griego on July 28, 2023 • ( 0 )

Feeling let down by people and life? Are you discouraged and disappointed as expectations fall short? Does it cause you self-doubt and disengagement? Consider God and the Discipline of Disillusionment. ◊

This issue of dealing with life’s day-to-day big and small disappointments keeps coming up.

It’s enough to get one depressed!

I was talking to a business colleague who was frustrated with employees who failed to follow through on a work commitment. He feels that it’s his own fault as a leader and is being pretty hard on himself.

Another friend was lamenting that his old college friends didn’t invite him to a planned gathering prior to their upcoming college reunion event. He’s feeling sad and left out.

Yet another felt miffed that her church did not ask her to head up the committee that she wanted to lead. She’s questioning her competence and standing among her peers.

At one level, this is all standard fare for living life. We all have ups and downs, frustrations, disappointments, and personal wins and losses. The key to healthy living is how we deal with all of this mentally, emotionally, and even physically.

How about spiritually?

Beyond a patronizing admonition to “just give it up to God” or “pray about it,” a case can be made for resetting spiritually on our response to setbacks and let-downs.

The Discipline of Disillusionment
The great 20th century Christian evangelist and teacher, Oswald Chambers, refers to the need for a God-centered Discipline of Disillusionment.¹

A classic definition of Disillusionment is as follows:

Definition: the condition of being disenchanted; the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope; a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.

In his popular and profoundly rich devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers makes the point that stark disillusionment may leave us cynical and even severe in our judgment of others. But a disillusionment which comes from God brings us to a place where we see people as they really are. We see truth without cynicism:

Disillusionment means that there are no more false judgments in life. To be undeceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgment of others, but the disillusionment which comes from God brings us to the place where we see men and women as they really are, and yet there is no cynicism, we have no stinging, bitter things to say.

He notes that we respond poorly or even misinterpret reality because we see illusions. We are a function of our own ideas, thinking, and expectations.

Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another. Everything is either delightful and fine, or mean and dastardly, according to our idea.

Chambers suggests that our reluctance to actually be disillusioned (even disciplined in our disillusionment!) is the cause of much of our suffering:

The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works in this way — if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it, we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give.

We are to love God and be satisfied by Him alone instead:

There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Case Study: Jesus Christ
Jesus was never deceived and under no illusions about mankind and human nature. He was very disciplined in how He responded and reacted to all events and details in His life.

Unlike most of us, He never despaired. He exercised no false judgments, but rather a Discipline of Disillusionment,

He moved through relationships and human encounters with a steady hand and coolness which defied logic. His interactions were without emotional highs and lows, because His trust and perspective were based on God alone, not on the fallible people around Him:

Why Our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every human relationship is because He knows that every relationship not based on loyalty to Himself will end in disaster.

Yes, Jesus loved; but He trusted no man. Even so, He was never mean, petty, vindictive, or bitter. His confidence was in God, His Father alone, and what God’s grace could do for any man:

Our Lord trusted no man, yet He was never suspicious, never bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God and in what His grace could do for any man, was so perfect that He despaired of no one.

Chamber’s concluding line challenges all of us as we consider our own bitter frustrations and disappointments at the hands of the humans around us:

If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone.

Do you despair? Is your trust placed on human beings or God?
_______________________________
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. – John 2:23-25

¹My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, “The Disciple of Disillusionment,” July 30, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1935.