From The Desk of David

You could feel the anticipation in the room. A group of strangers gathered to watch what would arguably be the most successful movie of the year. A tale of good versus evil, young love, and alternate realities was what drove all these strangers together on a dreary Friday night. Soon, the lights would drop, and the story had begun. But not too far into the film, the lead female would make a strange comment, something about if you expect to be disappointed than you can never be disappointed. The line stuck out and held my attention for bit longer than it probably should have but it struck me, why do we, as humans, avoid disappointment the way we do?

It wouldn’t be for a few weeks later until I found the answer to my question. Sitting across from a wise man in my life, I’d realize the reason we avoid disappointment is because often, we see it as an assault on who we are. The man on the other side of the office from me could see I was wrestling with this. Something about this didn’t seem to sit right with me about the link between disappointment and identity. He would pose the question, “why does a child hide a broken lamp from their parents?” I’d shoot back the response, “because they don’t want to anger their parents.” “And why avoid that,” he’d fire back. “Because the child knows they would have disappointed their parents?” I’d shoot back, clearly annoyed with this little exercise. “And to a child, disappointment can come off as…” “rejection.” I’d interject, finally getting the point. A warm smile of a proud man began to grow on his face. He knew I had finally gotten it. It’s our fear of rejection that give disappointment the power it has. And fear of rejection is something I think we all can relate to.

After our conversation, I’d find myself in a familiar place, in a coffee shop, headphones in, and a bible cracked open. Something would draw me back to the beginning, to another story, one where a man and woman existed in perfect union with a perfect God and then after a single bite of a forbidden fruit would break the union. But what happened right after caught my eye more than usual. Adam and eve, ran and hid, covering themselves in leaves in an attempt to hide the shame. The shame that they knew they disappointed God and that because of this, they thought they weren’t worth being seen by Him. 

The hiding is something we do all the time, whether it’s a child hiding a lamp they had just broken, a student hiding grades of failure, or a husband hiding infidelity from his wife. Our shame drives us to hide because we believe the lie that when others see our failures and then are subsequently disappointed, their disappointment means that we are the failure and that is the only thing we will ever be. 

However, in the case of Adam and eve, we so often miss what the Lord’s actual response is to Adam and eve. Yes, He is disappointed in their choice. But then He does something we so often miss. He proceeds to slaughter an animal and then fashions clothes for them. But in that action, blood had to be spilled. 

In our thirty-thousand-foot view of today, we know this is a symbolic foreshadowing to the work of the cross. And yes, this speaks to our identity too but when faced with the disappointment of Adam and Eve’s choice, the Lord declared that they weren’t their failure, and their actions didn’t need to be their identity. And the same goes for us. To The Lord, we were worth the brutal spilling of the blood of Jesus and because of this, He’s calling us to leave behind our disappointment and shame and come home.