The Hope of Transformation

I quote and resonate:

"I am disappointed with myself. I am disappointed not so much with particular things I have done as with aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be.

Some of this disappointment is trivial. Some is neurotic. Sometimes I am too concerned about what others think of me, even people I don't know. Some of this disappointment, I know, is worse than trivial; it is simply the sour fruit of self-absorption. I am disappointed in my ordinaries.

But some of this disappointment in myself runs deeper. I am disappointed that I still love God so little and sin so much. I always had the idea as a child that adults were pretty much the people they wanted to be. Yet the truth is, I am embarrasingly sinful. I am capable of dismaying amounts of jealousy if someone succeeds more visibly than I do. I am disappointed in my capacity to be small and petty. I cannot pray for very long without my mind drifting into some grandiose fantasy of achievement. I can convince people I'm busy and productive and yet waste large amounts of time doing nothing.

These are just some of the disappointments. I have other ones, darker ones, that I'm not ready to commit to paper. The truth is, even to write these words is a little misleading, because it makes me sound more sensitive to my fallenness than I really am. Sometimes, although I am aware of how far I fall short, it doesn't even bother me very much. And I am disappointed at my lack of disappointment.

Where does this disappointment come from? A common answer in our day is that it is a lack of self-esteem, a failure to accept oneself. That may be part of the answer, but it is not the whole of it, not by a long shot. The older and wiser answer is that the feeling of disappointment is not the problem, but a reflection of a deeper problem -- my failure to be the person God had in mind when he created me." (John Ortberg)