I trust in you, my God, and I will not be disappointed. My enemies will not laugh at me.

Life can be trying and demanding. Life can take the best you have to offer and treat it with indifference and contempt. You want to give it your best shot, but what if your best shot falls short? There is always the possibility of disappointment. There is always the possibility that some bitter pills will have to be swallowed. Life in this dispensation can be a thankless affair that tries one’s soul to the very core of its being. How will we bear up under its assaults? How will we continue to press on when disappointment looms like a specter before us?

It can get worse. Not only may we have to face up to the disappointments of life, we may also have to contend with those that do not have our best interests at heart, with those that actively oppose everything we are trying to accomplish. All along the way they may be critical of what we try to do, instead of helping out. All along the way they may do everything they can to sabotage our plans and initiatives, instead of getting behind them. They say it won’t work and they may do everything they can to make sure it doesn’t work. They may do everything they can to make sure their original prognostications come true. How will we stand it if our enemies shower us with scorn? How will we stand it if they laugh at us?

The dire possibilities are enough to make one give up the idea of doing anything. For people without God, life can make them want to pack it in altogether.

Things are different, however, for people that have God in their lives, for people that put their trust and faith in Him. They’re not blind. They see the dire possibilities of disappointment and enemy laughter. But they go forth anyway because they know that God is with them.

Think of Nehemiah and the returned exiles restoring the wall of Jerusalem, building with one hand and holding a sword in the other. Their detractors scorned and threatened them, but God was with them, and they finished the wall in an amazing 52 days (Nehemiah 3-6). God’s people know that things may not work out exactly as expected, but they will work out. The enemies may still laugh, but their laughter will fall flat. God will be there, and He will make sure of that.

Go forth today, therefore, with the plans and initiatives the Spirit of God has placed in your heart. Don’t fear disappointment and enemy laughter, for God is with you.

By John Huisman, friend of Bible League International