Perhaps you expected something from a certain person that he or she didn’t give you. This does not necessarily mean the person has sinned against you. We all have expectations of the people in our lives, and this goes both ways. Maybe people close to you—your spouse, children, parents, friends—hoped you would treat them in a certain way, but you failed to do it. 

Did your friends just ditch you when you needed them the most? Find out someone else got that job promotion you were hoping for? Did you want to help win the big game, but your coach left you sitting on the bench? Maybe you discovered your child is taking illegal drugs or having sex outside of marriage. Perhaps you learned that your spouse betrayed your trust in a small or even earth-shattering way. Maybe a person seriously hurt you (or someone close to you) physically and/or emotionally.

Here are three good things to remember when people let you down:

1. God is in control—and at work.

God is sovereign, and there is nothing—that’s right, nothing—that happens without his assent. In The Crook in the Lot, the Scottish theologian Thomas Boston (1676–1732) points out the important truth that while God is not the author of sinful acts, he nevertheless permits them for his own good purposes. Boston gives us three important aspects about God’s work in the difficult circumstances we face in life:

• “He holily permits them.” When Satan wanted to tempt Job to sin against God, he could only proceed with God’s permission (Job 1:9–12).

“He powerfully binds them.” If God did not restrain evil in the world, our hurts and disappointments would be far worse than they are presently (Job 1:12; 38:8–11).

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