Bulletins - Seven Hills Church

Good morning! Most of us have spent the week preparing for the coming of hurricane Irma. Some of us have spent time desperately looking for a generator, the elusive bottled water, stocking up on canned goods, sandbagging areas of our home to prepare for possible flooding and a host of other things to keep us safe.
We want to be prepared for a storm. All week long weather people have told us if it is not safe where you are to evacuate and many Floridians have heeded that advice. That is probably due to the devastation we saw as Harvey caused so much damage in Houston and the surrounding areas.
In our lives, we will face storms, but storms are not just weather phenomenons. There are also the storms of life. Many of us will go through storms of life unprepared, but we do not need to. We can prepare for them. Things like hard times, disappointments, hurts, pain, betrayal, temptation. Just like we prepare for a hurricane, we can prepare for these times of storms in our lives and in preparing for them, survive them.
So, this morning we are going to talk about storm proofing our lives from disappointment.
Dictionary. com defines disappointment as the feeling of sadness or displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one's hopes or expectations. We all suffer disappointment at times in our lives.
We do not get the promotion we thought we would get.
Children do something that is against what we have taught them.
A creation does not turn out like the picture we had in our head.
A friend makes a life changing choice that we know is not in their best interest.
Time and time again we struggle with disappointments in life and the key to dealing with them is to be prepared. To know the source of your disappointment and how to deal with it. Today, we will find the answers in an unlikely place, in a judgment parable told by Jesus.
is where we will be focusing this morning.

Luke 13:6–9 NIV
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ 8 “ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ ”
is where we will be focusing this morning.
This parables intended purpose was to call the Jews to repentance. To help them see something they did not want to see…their guilt. But it also, like parables, can have deeper implications and this morning we are going to look at the disappointment of the landowner, glean a few causes for his disappointment and look at ways we can deal with each of those disappointments.

So, let us look at three things that might cause disappointment.
We are trying to produce something in our life from a seed God never planted in us.
This is an agricultural parable and understanding an agricultural parable takes growing a garden. I encourage everyone who wants to feel closer to God to cultivate a garden. It will give you such insight into some of Jesus teachings.
This first point is a read between the lines, point. See God chooses what he plants in us wisely. In our lives he plants seeds. Some of those seeds, when nurtured, produce great results. We can see that in our gifts. Some of us have the gift of drawing or painting. Some of us do not. Some of us are planners and dreamers. Some of us are not. Some of us will be great basketball players. Some of us cannot shoot a free throw to save our lives.
Disappointments come when we try to produce something in our life that God never meant for us to be or achieve.
We bang our heads against the wall and hope for the best, but the reality is we will never make anything out of it, because God did not plant in us the seed to make it happen and we will fight and go through all kinds of disappointment until we resolve ourselves that this will never happen.
We are feeding ourselves the wrong nutrients.
There is an expectation here that the landowner has that there should be fruit on this tree. It has had enough time to mature. It from the outside looks like it should be growing.
This can sometimes be seen in tomato plants. Tomato plants need a balance. On the outside you may have a large tomato plant with lots of green, leafy branches. But you only have one or two tomatoes on a plant that should have many more tomatoes. After awhile you wonder what they problem is and you find that you should have been pulling some of those suckers or little branches when it was younger. All the nutrients have been going to plant production, not fruit production. Some of us have been pouring so much of our lives into the seeds God did not plant in our lives, that we do not have nutrients for the things God did plant in us.
In other cases we are like misplaced blueberry bushes. Blueberry bushes like lots of acidic soil. When you plant them in soil that is not acidic they will not grow. They will not produce. Sometimes there are areas of our life where we are not pouring the right nutrients into them and we need to correct this.
If we want to be more compassionate, we need to put ourselves into situations where we can learn to have compassion. We need to surround ourselves with people who are compassionate.
If we want to be better accountants. We need to study accounting. We need to surround ourselves with great accountants.
We need more time.
I remember my first year of gardening coming home and looking for signs of growth. In the beginning this requires patience. For plant, especially those from seeds take months before they are ready to begin producing, for fruit trees this can be years.
If you are expecting quick results you will be disappointed like the landowner, but the caretaker knew it needed more time and more care. He was not ready to give up. He asked for one more year.
Sometimes that is what we need is time. Time for everything to grow and maturity to come.
Preparing for these things means being ready before the disappointments are on top of you. For a Christian, dealing with these disappointments means.

(sometimes we are too quick to give up!) When we ignore our gardens, what grow in them are weeds and unwanted plants.
Dig around it is too separate it from the soil currently around it and fill it with the right soil. We see it in the fruit, but it starts in the soil. We are trying to seek it at an external level, but we need to go internal.

Preparing for these things means being ready before the disappointments are on top of you. For a Christian, dealing with these disappointments means.
Listening for God’s voice in your circumstance.
Taking the right action.
Taking it at the right time.
- - Bible Trivia
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- - Luke 13:6–9NIV2011

We are trying to produce something in our life from a seed God never planted in us.

We are feeding ourselves the wrong nutrients.

We need more time.

Listening for God’s voice in your circumstance.

Taking the right action.

Taking it at the right time.

Luke 13:6–9NIV2011