Disappointment

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Friday morning, the 31st of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Psalms 62:5: “My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.”  Then we go to John 13:7:“What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”I want to speak to you this morning about disappointment. Maybe your job has come to an end, maybe you are just not cutting it at university, maybe that proposal to that young girl has not worked out, maybe that business deal has fallen through and you are disappointed. The Lord will use that disappointment often to teach us lessons, and you say, “But it is too painful, I can’t take it anymore.” You can and you must because that teacher called “disappointment” is going to do a mighty work in your life. Now I want to use an example. When I was a young man, I had just come back from Australia. I was a cowboy in Australia. I got a position in Zambia at a very big farm, but the two owners of the farm, were quite rough-handed guys, and they wanted their pound of flesh, probably like I was after that! I had to be standing on the parade ground - that’s what it seemed like - every morning at quarter to six. I had 150 staff that had to be organised to the different parts of the farm. We were doing vegetables, we were doing beef cattle, we were doing seed maize, we were doing commercial maize, and this gentleman used to walk around in gumboots, and he was a very articulate man. He said to me, “Angus, at 6 o’clock, I don’t want to see one person standing in the yard. Everybody must be at work.”We had 8 tractors in those days. Now that was a big outfit, and I want to tell you, he really tested me. I handed my resignation in no less than 3 times, and he just tore them up and carried on, but you know, when I look back, that gentleman and his partner, the two of them, taught me more valuable things about life than anybody else. A writer once said, “Dear old rough-handed teacher, we will build you a monument and crown it with flowers and inscribe on it, “Blessed be the memory of disappointment.”Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Don’t be afraid of disappointment. It will bring lots of benefits afterwards.Goodbye.