Fear of Disappointing God

I recently received the opportunity to read and review Max Lucado’s upcoming book “Fearless”, which is scheduled to be released on September 8th and on which date you will get to read my thoughts on it. Until then, I have to keep it “hush-hush”, but I am already being touched by it and God is putting His finger on some things in my heart.

I’ve known for a while that I struggle with fear. I fear losing those I love. I fear for my loved ones should I die unexpectedly. I fear failure. I fear pain. I fear disappointing people. But perhaps most of all, I fear disappointing God. This exact fear is the topic of Chapter 4 of Max Lucado’s book and not only do I fear disappointing God, but I assume that I already have and am constantly doing so. I’m one big disappointment. My sins, my compromises, and my failures seem so frequent that the only logical conclusion my mind can arrive at is that He must be extremely tempted to just give up on me, if He hasn’t already!

This fear of disappointing God seems to be closely linked to another issue that He is putting His finger on, which is self-hatred. “Hello – my name is Jacquie and I despise myself.” There – I said it! So, apparently this is a big problem, because when I hate myself, I expect that others also hate me and that God hates me. Even in my own marriage, though my husband consistently showers me with words of love and shows me by his actions that he adores me, I can be incredibly fearful and insecure about revealing my weaknesses to him. I decide beforehand, that since I am disgusted and repulsed by my own darkness, that surely my husband will feel the same way and will promptly reject me if he finds out about the real me. This makes me fearful and I try to hide my flaws from him, not trusting in his unconditional love for me.

The same goes for my relationship with God, only the terrible thing is that He sees everything about me and nothing is hidden from His sight!! If He can see what I see (and more!), then He most definitely must be disappointed in me! I then reason that if I can’t hide my sin from Him, perhaps I can just avoid contact and hide from His gaze so that I won’t see the look of disappointment in His eyes. Like Adam and Eve, I run from Him in shame and the enemy showers me with words of condemnation, which I willingly listen to, instead of looking to the Lord to see what’s really there. Even when He tries to affirm His love for me, I reject His words and cannot accept His love or forgiveness. A scripture which I have clung to over the last couple years and which I seem to need to go back to countless times is Psalm 34:4-5…

⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.

⁵ Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.

Even as I was writing, He lovingly reminded me of a dream that He gave me over a decade ago, but which impacted me so deeply that it still brings tears to my eyes to this day. In this dream, I was an unfaithful wife who had left my husband to pursue other lovers and I was about to marry another man, only to recall that I was still married and would need to first find my husband and divorce him. This led to a journey of searching for him, which gave me a lot of time to remember how much he had loved me and realize what a fool I had been to leave him. As you can probably guess, my husband in this dream represented Jesus, and when I did finally find him, the memory that always strikes me is the look in his eyes. That look of disappointment I talked about? Nope – it wasn’t there. Disgust? Nope. Rejection? Nope. His look was one of the purest love and most sincere kindness and acceptance I have ever seen. His look invited me to come close and experience intimacy with him once again. There was no shame, no condemnation, no guilt-trip, no holding me at arms length. There was a hint of sadness in his eyes – perhaps some sorrow over the time lost – but I knew that he understood the pain in my own heart, the regret and sincere repentance for how I had wounded him. Now what if I had been so full of shame that I had kept my eyes downward, groveling at his feet? What if I had never looked up into his eyes to see what was truly there? And yet, I do this constantly!

Somewhere in my heart, I still believe that God is mostly disappointed in me and my self-hatred and fear keep me from looking to Him. Because I do not love myself, I keep a very good record of all the wrongs I have committed, so that each time I mess up, I remember my many previous grievances and I forget that His perfect love has wiped that record out! His mercy and forgiveness and the blood of Jesus have completely cleansed me from each and every one of those sins! I assume that He is recalling my muddy history and I don’t even want to come ask for forgiveness because I think He must be so weary of granting me mercy. Surely His patience has been worn paper-thin? Surely I’ve crossed the line this time? Surely this time He will say, “I’ve had enough!” But if I could just recall His love for me…His love that covers over a multitude of sins…His love that casts out all fear…His love that never fails.

Sigh…I feel like I am just barely scratching the surface of this and that there is still so much more in my heart that needs to be exposed, dealt with, healed, renewed. Yet, it’s a start. Perhaps it is time to start believing what He says about me and how He feels about me. I’ve heard it a thousand times, yet it needs to get past my mind and into my heart.

“Hello – my name is Jacquie and I am not a failure or a disappointment.”

“Hello – my name is Jacquie and God really likes me.”

“Hello – my name is Jacquie and God thinks I’m pretty great.”

“Hello – my name is Jacquie and I am loved and accepted by God – even as I am today.”

“Hello – my name is Jacquie and I am radiant. Beautiful. Flawless. Captivating. I have captured the heart of God.”