What are ways that one can cope with loss, fear, and disappointment?
- Blame someone (or everyone) else? Example: “… The woman You gave me, she gave me of the fruit and I ate…” (Genesis 3)
- Make success happen – but this means …
- Those I blamed can never be right = I spend the rest of my life arguing with them so I can justify my contention that I am still right and they are still wrong, OR
- What if they were right all along and I’m stuck with the consequences of my own pride, fears, and tenacity? Consider what this option has done to many lives and relationships.
- Why not repent of my ego and have the benefit of those whom God has appointed to lead me and who have always supported and cared for me? Consider the passage from Matthew 18: “… unless you repent and become as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven…” Regenerated, by the grace of God, we return to the life of the young child into life infinite, which the Spirit makes for us and works through us. Living thus, we are leaving God to make all things work together for good, waiting patiently but confidently on the Lord to provide for us, while we concentrate on making the best of all things He has already so wisely and abundantly given us.