Cultivating Hope

Show Notes

Sometimes the difficulties of life seem unbearable. They can even cause us to question our faith. In this episode, Barbara Rainey shares from her personal experiences and from the Bible to help cultivate hope when you're facing disappointment with God.

What is The Barbara Rainey Podcast?

Barbara Rainey mentors women in their most important relationships. She loves encouraging women to believe God and experience Him in every area of their lives.

Samantha Keller: Have you ever felt like God just didn’t come through for you? Barbara Rainey says He still gives you opportunities to trust Him.

Barbara Rainey: Even in our disappointment, I think God is waiting for us to continue to choose Him. What He’s waiting for is for us to say, “Yes, God, I still believe in You. Even though I don’t understand, I’m confused, I’m disillusioned, I’m in despair, I’m sad, I don’t know what to do next, but I still believe in You.”
Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home, dedicated to helping you cultivate hope as you experience God in your home. Thanks for listening!

Barbara’s joined today by her husband, Dennis Rainey.

Dennis Rainey: Your listeners have spoken to you very honestly. There’s a lot of disappointment with God taking place, and they are looking for some hope. Talk to them about why you have developed this series of videos and messages that we’re going to talk about today.

Barbara: Well, the bottom line for “Why?” is because I’ve been disappointed. I needed to find out answers. I needed to figure out, “What do I do? How do I handle it? Where does it come from? What does God want me to do? How do I find hope during hard times and difficult times?”

So I just started praying about it and reading Scripture and taking notes. And then I had the opportunity last spring, so in spring of 2021, I spoke at the women’s retreat for our church. They said I could speak on anything I wanted to, which was really nice to have a blank slate. It was fun.

So we talked about doing something on disappointment with God. We decided that we would focus it on how to cultivate hope and grow hope during those seasons of disappointment or hardship in life. So that’s what we did. That helped me put some more thoughts into it and create some more content around that. We have a video Bible study that’s coming out.

Dennis: Yes. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. Just talk about disappointment with God. Why is it that we have a relationship with Almighty God, but a lot of people would describe their relationship with Him as checkered with disappointment. He hasn’t come through. He didn’t come through the way they wanted Him to. Explain that.

Barbara: Well, I think there are a multitude of reasons. But, in a nutshell, I think it’s because we’re human. We’re fallen. We can’t figure out who God is. So, without even realizing it, we expect Him to act like we act.

We think, “Well, I’m following the rules (so to speak) in the Bible about prayer. I’m doing the things that I think I’m supposed to do based on what I see the Bible says. So therefore, shouldn’t God reward me? Shouldn’t God come through with an answer to prayer? Shouldn’t result for my effort in the Christian life?” So I think that’s it, in a nutshell.

We Christians just have expectations of God, because we don’t know who He is, really, when it comes right down to it.

And we’re not the only ones. The disciples, when Jesus walked the earth, were constantly disappointed in Him. He turned their world upside-down. He did things backwards. He said things that made no sense. They scratched their heads, and they looked at each other, and said, “What’s He talking about?”

So if the disciples, who walked with Jesus and talked with Him face to face, were confused by Him, why would we think that we shouldn’t be confused by God when we don’t see Him as they did. God is so beyond our comprehension, and He is so much bigger, greater, more wonderful. We can’t comprehend that in our puny, fallen minds.

Dennis: You’ve been my wife for over 50 years, now.

Barbara: I have.

Dennis: You are a mom, a grandmother.

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: I know you have high expectations about life and about God. But would you share with our listeners just one illustration of a time you were disappointed with God and what you learned?

Barbara: I would say the first time that I really experienced disappointment with God was in the early years of my Christian faith. I became a believer in college. And then you and I got married right out of college. So I was pretty young in the faith in the early years of our marriage.

I remember in that first ten years praying for a lot of things. I had a pretty extensive prayer list. I thought that was a part of the Christian life. One of the very first verses I learned as a new believer was Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t be anxious for anything, but instead pray about everything.” I took it literally, and I prayed about everything. I had a long prayer list.

Most of the items on my prayer list were for people who didn’t know Christ or who were not walking with Him. They were people that I loved. It was family members. It was really good friends, people that I really cared about.

I remember praying for years and years for some of these people and seeing absolutely no change. No results, nothing that could be any indication that God was working, hearing my prayers, working on behalf of these people. I knew He cared about them. I knew He loved them. The Bible tells us that He loves everyone and He wants everyone to come to repentance (see 2 Peter 3:9). He wants everyone to know Him.

It just didn’t make sense to me that, after ten years of praying for a family member to come to know God, that nothing happened. It was bewildering to me. I remember getting really, really discouraged. I didn’t so much learn a lesson in that particular time frame as I did later on.

What happened was that I began to back off on prayer, thinking, “Well, if it’s really not working and God’s going to do what He’s going to do, why should I bother to pray?” I backed way off on prayer for a long time. It’s not that I quit praying entirely, but I quit putting things on a list because every time I looked at the list I saw failure or disappointment.

So I quit putting all those things on a list, and I would pray for things as I experienced that relationship or as I saw that person. But I didn't’ continue praying daily and faithfully, like I had done.

I learned that there was a lot about God that I didn’t know. There was a lot about life that I didn’t understand. There was a lot about people that I didn’t understand, either. There was a whole lot more to this thing of knowing God and having a relationship with Him than a simple, transactional kind of relationship, where I went to Him by certain rules.

It’s like putting money in a vending machine. I used to treat God a lot like a vending machine. I put in a certain amount of “coins” for certain things, and thought I would get certain results out the slot. I think a lot of us treat God that way. We relate to Him that way, especially early in our Christian lives, because it just makes sense to us as humans.

And then we begin to realize that that’s not how God works. That’s not always the way He operates in the world.

Like the disciples were disappointed with Jesus, I was disappointed with God. He didn’t come through like I thought He would. The whole process of resolving that disappointment (and then lots and lots of others ones) has taken many decades. It’s taken a long time because it’s not something that can be solved quickly. It’s an ongoing dilemma that we live with.

It’s a tension, I think, between being human, and relating to the Divine. The finite relating to the Infinite. We’re always going to miss each other. We’re always going to fall short in understanding who God is and knowing what He wants. We just don’t have the ability, as broken, fallen people, to know Him as He really is.

Dennis: It’s interesting: the Bible is a book where God invites us to a relationship with Him.

Barbara: Yes, He does.

Dennis: He wants us to trust Him. And yet the nature of disappointment is to lose heart. We can lose faith.

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: Comment on that.

Barbara: Well, it reminds me, as you just asked that question, of a story in the Bible that has become one of my favorites in recent years. I teach that story in the video series. It’s the story of Mary and Martha. It’s the story that a lot of people know about these two women. It’s the story of when Lazarus died and Jesus didn’t show up.

Mary and Martha were both deeply, profoundly disappointed with Jesus because they knew He loved them. Just like we know He loves us. When He doesn’t come through, that just produces disappointment. So Mary and Martha were profoundly disappointed.

Martha ran to Jesus when He finally showed up. She got in His face and said, “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” I can just hear her demanding that of Him. But it’s interesting what Mary did.

Mary did not run to meet Jesus. She was so disappointed and so hurt, so confused, so bewildered, that she stayed in the living room of their house and sat on the floor and rocked, in a fetal position or hugging her knees. I can just picture her sitting there, being so hurt and disappointed that she can’t even get up and go see Jesus, because He let her down so much.

I think the real key to this is to realize that our disappointment doesn’t mean that we don’t have faith. I think the fact that we’re disappointed at all means that we believe. I wouldn’t be disappointed with God if I didn’t believe in Him. So, because we have disappointment, I think we need to be comforted that that means we do have faith. That means we do believe in God. We just don’t understand him; we don’t understand why He’s doing what He’s doing.

The second thing is, we need to remember that He’s waiting for us. The part of that story that’s so beautiful and poignant is that Jesus told Martha, “Go get your sister and tell her to come see me.”

Now, that sentence isn’t recorded in the Scripture, but we know He said that, because Martha went and found Mary, and said, “The Teacher is asking for you.” So we know that Jesus said it. That part’s just not recorded. And Mary then got up and went to see Him.

And so I think we need to remember, in those hard times, in those disappointments, that Jesus is always waiting for us to come to Him. If we choose to “stay home,” and we choose to wallow in self-pity, which we do, which I have done— that’s okay, as long as we don’t stay there forever. We need to, at some point, get up and go to Jesus and tell Him how disappointed we are.

Mary said the same thing that Martha did. She said, “Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” So it’s not that we can’t say those things. It’s that we need to go to Him and say that to Him and let Him hear our grief and our losses. And believe that He is there, because He is.

Dennis: The nature of relationships is to have expectations about those relationships.

Barbara: Yeah, we have a few in human relationships, don’t we?

Dennis: Don’t we? The only kind of relationship that doesn’t have any kind of expectations is a dead relationship.

Barbara: And the only relationship that doesn’t have disappointment is a dead relationship.

Dennis: Exactly. So, to experience that with God, first of all, I want our listeners to know, it’s normal.

Barbara: It’s very normal.

Dennis: This is the nature of relationships, that we get disappointed. So what do you do with the hurt that comes from disappointment with God?

Barbara: Well, you take it to Him, first of all, which is what Martha and Mary both did. It’s what the disciples did when they were disappointed and confused. You do what Peter did. You do what the other disciples did. You say, “Well, if I go away, where am I going to go?” Peter said, “Lord, to whom will we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

So, even in our disappointment, I think God is waiting for us to continue to choose Him. What He’s waiting for is for us to say, “Yes, God, I still believe in You. Even though I don’t understand, I’m confused, I’m disillusioned, I’m in despair, I’m sad, I don’t know what to do next, but I still believe in You.” I think that’s the real key to moving through disappointment. I think that’s the pivot point, so to speak, of a relationship with God— continuing to choose to believe in Him, no matter what. That’s what He’s looking for. And that’s the essence of our faith, continuing to choose Him, no matter what.

Dennis: You quote Ney Bailey in your video series. Ney is a good friend. She goes way back with us. She wrote a book called Faith Is Not a Feeling. For a lot of people, when you get disappointed, faith evaporates if it’s a feeling.

Barbara: And the feelings take over the faith, even if the faith doesn’t evaporate. I always have loved that title, because that title sums up what faith is all about. Ney goes on to write in her book Faith Is Not a Feeling, “Faith is simply taking God at His word. It’s choosing to believe that He is who He says He is, that He loves us (and that hasn’t changed), that He is with us (and that hasn’t changed), that He is for us (and that hasn’t changed). It’s believing in those hard times, in that disappointment that God has not changed. I may have changed. My circumstances may have changed, but God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”

So the key to faith is remembering that it’s not about how I feel, it’s about who God is and believing in who He is, and that He is eternal and unchanging.

Dennis: Talk to the person who has, frankly, found themselves at the bottom of the funnel. They’ve spiraled into unbelief. Let’s face it. They’ve given up on God. Jesus spoke to Martha about her unbelief. What did He say?

Barbara: After He had showed up in Bethany, after He had talked to Martha, and after He had talked to Mary, He then said to them, “Take me to where Lazarus is laid.” Lazarus had been dead four days. He was in a tomb. The rock was against the cave where he was laid. They took Him to where he was.

And then Jesus said, “Roll away the stone.” And they went, “Well, wait a minute. He’s been dead four days. The stench is going to be terrible.

And Jesus looked at them and said, “Did I not tell you that I am the resurrection and the life?” It’s like He looked at them and said, “Did you not just hear me two minutes ago say, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’?”

We forget so quickly!

For anyone who’s listening who is in the slough of despond, so to speak, or you’re at the bottom of the well, and you just think, “I just don’t know that I can keep believing,” He hasn’t changed. Jesus has not changed. He evidenced that with Mary and Martha. He hadn’t changed. But He had a purpose that He wanted to do, something He wanted them to see and to learn that they couldn’t have learned otherwise.

Often our disappointments are really doorways into seeing God more clearly. Our disappointments are really a gateway into knowing who He is more clearly and more personally and more intimately.

I would say, quite honestly, for all the things I’ve been through, and there have been a lot— in the middle of it, it stinks. In the middle of it, it’s crummy, it’s awful. And you do feel abandoned, and you do feel alone. But on the other side, that’s when you see God more clearly.

I wouldn’t trade those experiences that I’ve been through for what I have learned about God, for how I have seen Him, for how I have come to love Him more than ever before. Those experiences of disappointment have allowed me to see God for who He is, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Dennis: I’ve watched you go through these moments of disappointment and struggling with faith on numerous occasions. But you have continued to press through, so much so you’ve created this video series called “Cultivating Hope: Trusting God During Times of Disappointment and Hardship.” That’s really what God calls us to do. He actually calls us to kind of double down on our faith and say, “I’m going to believe the best about God, regardless of my circumstances and what I see and what I feel and what I’m experiencing.

Barbara: Yeah, I totally agree. I remember another situation when I was really, really disappointed. There was someone I’d been praying for for years, and this person was not doing well. This person was really doing badly in life and making bad choices. I was so discouraged and so disheartened.

I remember thinking, “I’m going to have to choose to believe God through this.” So I got out a card, a small stock piece of paper, and I wrote James 1:2-8, which talk about considering it all joy when you encounter various trials. And I remember, as I wrote that, thinking, “That is so hard to do! There is nothing about this situation that makes me joyful or happy, but I’m going to believe You that I’m supposed to count it all joy.”

And then it goes on in those verses to talk about how, as you go through suffering and as you go through trials, that God will build endurance in your heart. That’s one of the benefits, that’s one of the gifts that He gives us when we go through difficulties and hard times, is that He builds endurance in our hearts.

So I wrote out those verses, James 1:2-8, on a card, and I taped it to my steering wheel. And I remember getting in my car and reading those verses over and over again, day after day after day, when I thought I couldn’t possibly make it to the end of the day. Life felt so hard. And I remember reading that line about endurance, and that God promises that He will produce endurance in our hearts.

I thought, “Okay, Lord, I’m counting on You doing that. I can’t see endurance. I can’t feel it. I can’t measure it. But You say You’re going to do it, and by golly, I’m going to count on You doing it. I’m going to believe You that You’re going to do that. Because something good has to come out of this hard time. And if it’s endurance, I’ll take it.”

So I think what He wants us to do is He wants us to take Him at His word and say, “I’m going to believe in You in the midst of this really hard, crummy, difficult time, and I’m going to count on You to do the impossible in my heart. I’m going to count on You to make Yourself known. I’m going to count on You to show Yourself real to me. I’m going to count on You to fulfill Your word. I’m going to believe You. I’m going to trust you, no matter what.” That’s the kind of faith that God is looking for. He wants us to believe in Him, no matter what. Because He knows so much more than we do. And He’s got a plan and He’s working it. We just can’t see it when we’re in the middle of disappointment.

Dennis: Faith keeps pressing us back into God…

Barbara: Yep.

Dennis: … when we don’t understand His purposes, what He’s up to, what He’s doing in our lives. I’d like you to pray for that person right now who’s been listening to you talk about this. They’re facing something that for them, it’s a giant test. They’re thinking about bagging the Christian faith. They may be locked up in unbelief, even after listening to what you just said. Pray for them, that they might believe the best about God, who He is, and that He knows what He’s up to in their lives.

Barbara: I’ll do that.

Father in heaven, I want to thank you that you love us. And for this person who is listening, and there are probably many, who are in the midst of really crushing circumstances, really significant disappointments. It feels as if You’re a million miles away. It feels as if You have abandoned them. And yet, Father, You haven’t. You love them. You love each and every one. I want to thank You that You love them.

I want to pray for that person, that he or she will hold onto the truth that You love them. And I want to pray that they will put a stake in the ground and say, “God, I believe You, and I’m going to choose to keep believing You, no matter how long this lasts, and no matter how hard it remains. I’m going to trust You to bring good out of this in the end.” A

Father, I know that you will, because You are a good God and you have good in mind. You always want to work out good in our lives. It’s just not an easy road to get there, like we would like for it to be.

So I pray that you will encourage everyone listening to believe You and to trust You and to say over and over again, “I believe You, God, no matter what, and I will not walk away because I know You are true and my feelings are changing.”

And I ask all of this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Dennis: For those who have been listening to this who’d like to grow a little deeper, Barbara’s got a new video series that’s out. It’s called “Cultivating Hope: Trusting God During Times of Hardship and Disappointment.” She addresses all of these issues and more in this series.

I’d encourage you to go through this Bible study either by yourself or get together with a group of women and go through this as a group, sharing how you are addressing issues of unbelief and hurt and anger at God. Faith grows best in the crucible of relationships.

Samantha: That’s so true. Well, whether you plan to go through this video Bible study on Cultivating Hope with a friend or a group of friends, or just by yourself, you can start here: EverThineHome.com/hope. There are five episodes in all, and you can watch the first episode for free. Again, you’ll find all the details at EverThineHome.com/hope.

We do hope you’re able to do it with others, though, because, as you just mentioned, Dennis, we really do grow best spiritually in the context of solid relationships with others.

Dennis: Barbara, I’d like you to comment on that just as we come out of today’s podcast. One of the reasons why you’ve developed this series is so that women can get together and grow their faith together.

Barbara: Yeah. I think it’s important, even in the story of Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha had each other. They were sisters. And all of us have sisters in Christ. All of us have friends. All of us know people who, if they knew you were really struggling with something, would be delighted to pray for you, to walk with you, to encourage you.

I think we, especially as Americans, tend to be so self-sufficient and independent. We don’t like to let somebody know that we’re hurting or that we’re struggling.

I remember forming a prayer group with some women when several of our kids were in high school. I don’t remember exactly how many were in high school at that time. But one of ours in particular was struggling with some things. I thought, “You know, I need somebody else to pray with me. I needs somebody else to pray with me who gets it. Somebody else who is sort of in the same boat, who’s fighting or battling or struggling with the same issues that I am.”

I knew of a couple of other women in our church. So I just called them and said, “Hey, look, what do you think about forming a prayer group? We can just pray once a week. If it doesn’ work, we don’t have to do it. But let’s just keep it simple. And let’s just meet together and pray about our kids, who are all going through some of the same things.”

That prayer group lasted for years. We didn’t always meet every single Monday or Tuesday, whatever day it was. But we met pretty consistently. And that prayer group was life-giving. It didn’t change situations so much with our kids as much as it changed us.

I think we were just encouraged every time we met together. We were not alone. That’s the real challenge when we’re going through disappointment and hardship: we do feel alone. We look at other people, and we think, “Well, they’re not going through what I’m going through,” or “they must not ever suffer like I do.”

That isolation that we can allow ourselves to get in, kind of like Mary did— Mary didn’t go see Jesus. She stayed home alone— our temptation is to stay alone and to stay isolated.

But when we risk meeting with somebody else, when we risk bringing somebody else into our story and into what’s going on in our lives, we’re encouraged. We dispel that aloneness. We push back the darkness. We have someone else who is bearing the burden with us.

That’s what God calls us to do. It’s the body of Christ. He wants us to support and encourage one another and bear one another’s burdens. It makes the load lighter.

Dennis: And this video series is really to allow women to not only listen to you speak and watch you on video, but also dig into a Bible study, an outline that you’ve created that will help them develop faith in the midst of disappointing times.

Samantha: Again, the new video series from Barbara Rainey is titled Cultivating Hope in Times of Hardship and Disappointment, and you’ll find all the details at EverThineHome.com/hope, including how to watch the first episode for free. That address is EverThineHome.com/hope.

Well, thank you, Dennis and Barbara! And thank you for listening today. I’m Samantha, inviting you back for the next edition of “The Barbara Rainey Podcast,” from Ever Thine Home.