Breaking Free from Disappointment

Send us a text

Can disappointment be the invisible barrier that's preventing you from fully embracing your creative potential and spiritual growth? Discover how unacknowledged disappointment can act like hardened soil, blocking the seeds of inspiration and revelation that God intends for you. Join us on the Thriving Christian Artist podcast as we explore the profound impact of disappointment and how it can lead to bitterness, cynicism, and a disengagement from faith. Inspired by Jesus' parables about seeds and soil, we'll uncover the roots of bitterness and offer insights on how to break free from this cycle that stifles both creativity and spiritual connection.

In this episode, we'll share effective strategies to recognize and release feelings of disappointment, aligning ourselves with God's plan and timing. Learn how repentance and faith, as described in Romans 10, can help nurture the seeds God plants in our hearts, transforming them into flourishing expressions of His kingdom. Protect your heart from the destructive forces of bitterness and regret, and open yourself to the life and creativity God has designed for you. Join us in this inspiring conversation and become the thriving artist God has called you to be.

Fuel Your Creative Calling with Weekly Encouragement
Join thousands of Christian artists who are growing in faith, creativity, and purpose.

Subscribe to The Thriving Christian Artist Weekly and receive powerful, faith-filled content every week—designed to encourage your heart, spark your creativity, and equip you to walk boldly in your God-given calling as an artist.

👉 Click here. It’s free. It’s faith-filled. And it’s just for you.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Thriving Christian Artist, the
podcast where we hope youconnect with God to bust through
the roadblocks that have heldyou back for years, create the
work you love and really livethe life you know.
God created you to live as anartist in His kingdom.
I'm Matt Tama, your host.
Let's get started.
Well, hey, my friend, welcometo the podcast today.

(00:24):
Super glad that you are with me.
Listen, I'm having the besttime right now, walking several
hundred people through ourFoundations course in Created to
Thrive, and one of the thingsthat I'm learning and just
relearning is how difficultgetting over disappointment can
be in your life and what ablockage that can be.

(00:47):
In fact, if you don't learn toovercome disappointment, it can
really result in a hardening ofthe heart and preventing
everything that God has for youin your life.
You know I was thinking aboutthis the other day and just how
many people are struggling withthis, not only in their art but
in every part of life, and itreminded me of all the times

(01:08):
that Jesus spoke about theparables, about seeds and soil
and the harvest and all that,and revealing, really, how the
condition of our heartdetermines our ability to
receive from him and receive thethings he has for us and also
grow in faith.
But one of the greatest threatsto that fruitfulness in our
life isn't merely just the youknow external opposition that we

(01:32):
might be facing.
That we feel like is maybe anattack from the enemy or
something like that, but it isthis internal hardening of our
hearts that happens a lot oftimes through disappointment.
You know, a lot of times theenemy doesn't cause something,
but he will absolutely use it ina way that he'll want to take
advantage of and use as an opendoor.
And I just see disappointmentin the lives of artists over and

(01:56):
over and over.
When it's left unaddressed, itstarts to act like compacted
soil, if you will.
That prevents these seeds thatGod's putting out there of
inspiration and revelation.
It prevents them from sproutingand taking root in our lives.
And what begins as just simplya moment of maybe unmet
expectations or frustration thatyou should, you know we all

(02:18):
would want to be able to movethrough, that can quickly turn
into this pattern of feelingbitter and anxious and feeling a
lot of regret and maybe evenstarting to use things like
procrastination and having thisunrealistic sort of fear of
failure all compacted togetherjust as a result of

(02:39):
disappointment.
And so if we don't learn how todeal with disappointment in a
healthy way, it doesn't justhinder our faith, it doesn't
just hinder us walking with theLord, it can completely choke
out our faith and our ability tohear God's voice and follow his
lead.
And that is a big, big, bigthing that the enemy can use in

(03:00):
our life to keep us fromeverything that God has for us.
You know, hebrews 12, 15 is areally, really important verse
when we talk about bitternessand the hardening of hearts.
It says see to it that no onefalls short of the grace of God
and that no bitter root grows upto cause trouble and defile

(03:21):
many.
That Greek word there,interestingly, is a word called
pekiria, which actually meansresentfulness, deep-seated
hatred or sharp, piercing sorrow.
Okay, and so see, whendisappointment lingers and
festers in your heart, it oftentransforms into that picaria,

(03:45):
right?
That bitterness which makes us,can make us resentful toward
God, toward others, even towardlife itself, toward our calling
as an artist.
And this root of bitternessmost of the time grows unseen,
beneath the surface, but itsfruit starts coming out in our
life, right?
Well, how do you know if you'vegot a root of bitterness?

(04:05):
Well, I would say check yourfruit right.
Are you really feeling a lot ofcynicism, maybe distrust, maybe
disengaging from faith ordreams that you've had in the
past?
Really, you know things thatyou felt like God's promised you
.
Now you're just kind of holdingthose at arm's length,
wondering if you ever reallyheard God in the first place or

(04:26):
if that's even really possible.
I was thinking about this todayand just as I was preparing for
this and this kind of came to me, I wrote it down.
I said don't let disappointment, disappointment derail the
seeds God longs to sow in thesoil of your heart, nor displace
the ones he's already sown.

(04:47):
And how many of you know that'sexactly what the enemy wants to
do.
He wants to use disappointmentin your life, difficult things
that you walk through,challenging seasons, challenging
situations, relationships,unmet expectations, whatever.
He wants to use those to derailthe seeds that God's trying to
plant in your heart, the dreamsand the ideas and the solutions

(05:08):
and all the different stuff.
And he's wanting to also usethat disappointment to displace,
to kick out, to dig up thethings that God's already sown
in your heart and may already beproducing fruit.
But he knows that if he can getbitterness and disappointment
to take root in your heart, itcan absolutely begin to derail

(05:30):
and displace those things.
You know, when I think about thefruit of disappointment and
this sort of cycle that ends upkeeping us stuck in
disappointment, I think aboutthe first thing.
You know bitterness, right,Something doesn't go our way,
something happens in a way thatwe think it should not have and
all of a sudden there can beanger and frustration toward

(05:51):
ourself, toward others, towardGod.
It can show up as regret.
You know constantly feelingabout.
You know, just like you'redwelling on the past and the
failures of the past or the waysthat you know things didn't go,
that you thought they shouldhave gone.
Maybe you feel like gosh, I'mgetting, I'm getting older, I
missed the best part of my life,I've missed the things that God

(06:11):
has for me and that that canlead into a lot of anxiety,
right, about fear of futuredisappointments.
In other words, I don't want tostep out because I don't want
the thing to happen last time tohappen this time.
So you just end up number four,procrastinating, right,
avoiding action, so that youdon't end up having to go
through that bitterness andregret and anxiety and

(06:32):
disappointment that you went to.
You know that you experiencedbefore and again just that whole
general fear of failure andshrinking back from opportunity.
See, I found this in my ownlife and just in walking with
others that are walking throughthings like this.
Disappointment acts like a sortof like a Teflon coating, if you

(06:53):
will, on your heart and on yourmind.
It literally prevents God ideas, god's promises, god's
inspiration from taking root inyour heart.
And as you journey through life, you have to remember that the
fruit of agreement is themanifestation of the kingdom and
its fruit and its promises inyour life.

(07:14):
But the fruit of agreeing withdisappointment is what
Bitterness and anxiety andregret and procrastination and
fear of failure.
And so we want to do everythingwe can to come into agreement
with the Lord and out ofagreement with the things that
the enemy is trying to bring anduse to our detriment in our
life.
So if you want to see thekingdom of God, the fruit of the

(07:35):
kingdom, in your life andreally kick this whole thing of
disappointment to the curb anduproot that bitter root, uh,
here really I think five thingswill will help you do that in a
very practical way.
Number one acknowledge andrelease that thing.
Just be honest with God aboutyour disappointments and maybe
even, as you're with him inprayer and in your imagination,

(07:56):
just see yourself giving that tohim.
Repent also for coming intoagreement with bitterness.
Again, when you agree withsomething in your life, whether
it's positive or negative,whether it's kingdom or not
kingdom, you're inviting, you'regiving that thing opportunity
to operate in your life.
And if you've given bitternessthe opportunity to operate in

(08:19):
your life, just repent, just belike God.
I missed the mark here.
Thank you for showing me abetter way.
Lord, I give this to you.
I want to be cleansed of this.
I come out of agreement withthat in Jesus' name, and I come
into agreement, which is numberthree.
Come into agreement with God'splan, his timing, his process.
Number four begin to sow theseeds of truth.

(08:40):
Fill your heart with God's word.
Guard your heart.
Number five protect it fromallowing the enemy to use the
normal things of life,disappointments and unmet
expectations.
Use that as an opportunity tosay Lord, even though I'm going
through these things that havetripped me up in the past, I'm

(09:02):
choosing that when I go throughthose this next time, I'm going
to give those to you and notallow those things to take root
in my life.
You know, I like to think of itthis way.
I like to think of God, youknow, maybe sowing seeds and
ideas and solutions andinspiration, like little seeds
all over the world, allhappening all the time right,

(09:24):
and he's waiting for us, as hissons and daughters, to have open
hearts and hearts full of faith, to be able to receive the
things that he has for us,because that's how the kingdom
of God gets manifested, not onlyin our life, but also through
our life into the earth.
And listen, I just believethere's a lot of great ideas,

(09:45):
like seeds scattered along theroadside that are waiting for
people like you and me, somebodywith faith and openness and a
healed heart, to plant those inthe garden of their heart and
nurture them and bring them into maturity.
Listen, the Bible says inRomans 10,.
It says faith comes by hearingand hearing by the word of God.

(10:07):
And listen, we cannot bearkingdom fruit in our life if we
are continually feeding on thebitter harvest of disappointment
in our life.
We keep going back to thatbroken cistern just thinking
that the longer we nurture thisthing, the better it's going to
get.
We got to come out of agreementwith that.
Let the Lord heal that place inour heart and let faith arise.

(10:29):
And again, not letdisappointment and the normal
challenges of life derail theseeds and the potential seeds
that God longs to sow in ourheart and or displace the ones
that that he's already sown inour heart.
My friend, god has so much foryou and it's learning to examine

(10:50):
the fruit in your life.
Examine the places where theenemy still is trying to use a
place of woundedness or traumain your life to get a foothold.
Give that to Jesus.
Walk in the freedom that he'salready given you.
As you start to do that on anormal basis, using these
principles here and maybe thefive R's, if you've used that
and that I've written about somuch and unlocking the heart of

(11:10):
the artist or in God's plan forliving, as you start to use
those kinds of strategies inyour life to walk in healing as
a normal part of your journeywith him, you will see faith
arise.
You will see disappointmentdisplaced in your heart and be
able to overcome these thingsthat normally set us back.
I love you, my friend.

(11:31):
I'm so glad that you're herewith me today.
Join me again on the podcast.
Share this with somebody elseif it's been a blessing to you
and remember until next time youwere created to thrive.
Bye, hey.
Thanks so much for spending afew minutes with me today on the
podcast Listen.
I hope it's been a hugeencouragement to you on your
journey as an artist.

(11:51):
Hey, also, before you leave,make sure to hit the subscribe
button so you don't miss any ofthe other episodes of the
Thriving Christian ArtistPodcast, and also be sure to
connect with me on Facebook,instagram or at my website,
which is matttommymentoringcom.
Until next time, remember, youwere created to thrive.
Bye-bye, thank you.