Disappointed

I do this more often that I would like to admit.

I come to God with open hands and a sincere heart, but underneath the desire for blessing lies something deeper. A hope that God will give me not just what I need, but what my idols demand.

“If I just had a little more money…
If You would open this door…
If I could get that house…
If this relationship worked out…
If my career took off…
Then I’d be happy.”

We rarely say it out loud, but this subtle sense of disappointment lives quietly under the surface. We want God to feed the very things that steal our joy.

And when He doesn’t, we leave disappointed, confused, even hurt — unaware that the disappointment itself may be the most loving thing He could do for us.

The Hidden Gift of Unanswered Prayers

If God gave us everything we asked for, we might never look beneath the hood of our lives. We would never discover how deeply these desires shape our decisions, fuel our anxiety, and push us into comparison. We would never notice the way they quietly siphon off joy.

Disappointment is the gift because it forces us to sit still long enough to see what’s really happening inside. It exposes what we’ve elevated from a good thing to an ultimate thing.

We live in a world addicted to the quick fix — a society built on instant gratification, dopamine loops, and curated images designed to make us want more. In a culture of endless scrolling and targeted ads, it’s not surprising that we’ve lost the ability to tolerate disappointment.

But that hunger — that restlessness — is precisely what God uses to heal us.

What Disappointment Produces in Us

When we refuse to run from disappointment, something begins to happen:

1. It teaches us dependence.
Only God can give the joy that lasts. The joy that doesn’t rise and fall with circumstances. The joy Paul meant when he said he had learned to be content in all situations.

2. It builds patience.
We stop reaching for the next hit of gratification and begin savoring the slower, quieter gifts of ordinary life. We learn to delight in simple things, in relationships, in moments that can’t be monetized.

3. It reveals where our desires are out of balance.
Desire isn’t the problem. We were created to long for things. But desire can quietly shift, little by little, until it becomes something we believe we absolutely must have in order to feel happy, secure, or whole. That’s usually a sign that a legitimate need is being met in an illegitimate way — a longing for love, or safety, or control that we try to satisfy on our own terms.

Disappointment exposes this. It brings to light the places where our desires have wrapped themselves too tightly around our hearts. It helps us see that we’re not simply wanting good things; we’re depending on them in ways they were never meant to carry. And without realizing it, we start asking God to keep those desires fed rather than to free us from them.

When He doesn’t, we can react like children who didn’t get what they wanted. But even that reaction is revealing. It uncovers what we’ve been clinging to and why, and invites us to finally deal honestly with it.

The Invitation

The deeper work is asking, What desire sits underneath that disappointment?
Is it pointing to something good that has quietly taken on too much weight in my life?
Has a good thing become an ultimate thing?
Where am I asking God to bless something He may actually be trying to loosen my grip on?

These are uncomfortable questions, but they’re also honest ones.
And they are often the very places where formation begins.

Disappointment is not the end of the story.
It’s an invitation to pay attention.
To get curious.
To see what is shaping me, and why.
To let the false comforts lose their hold so something truer can take root.

I’m learning — slowly — that when God refuses to feed my idols, it isn’t punishment.
It’s mercy.

Because if those shallow desires were always satisfied, I’d never discover the deeper joy I was made for.
And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe disappointment is the doorway into a kind of freedom I wouldn’t choose on my own.

So perhaps the better question — the one I’m sitting with — is this:
What is this disappointment trying to teach me about what I really want, and who I am becoming?

And I’m letting that question linger.
Because the answer is rarely quick.
But it’s almost always transformative.