Why Do I Feel Like It's Too Late for What God Promised Me?

By Angela D. Thomas, DrPH, MPH, MBA

It isn't too late. The desire God planted in you didn't expire because life got hard or because you stopped looking at it. If you buried a dream after disappointment, God is still willing to hand it right back to you, sometimes decades after you let it go.

Let me talk to a specific woman today. The one who wanted something so bad when she was younger that it made her come alive. A dream, a calling, a picture of her life she couldn't stop thinking about. And then life happened. Something broke, something disappointed her, and little by little she stopped saying it out loud. She told herself it was childish. She told herself that ship had sailed.

If that's you, stay with me.

What Simba Can Teach Us About a Buried Dream

You remember Simba. When he was a cub, he could not wait to be king. He sang a whole song about it, did the choreography and everything, because he knew exactly who he was and where he was headed. Then his father died, Scar convinced him it was all his fault, and he ran. He ended up in a whole new life eating bugs with a meerkat and a warthog, singing Hakuna Matata, no worries for the rest of his days. And when Nala finally found him and told him to come home and take his place, he said no. He'd bought the lie that the throne wasn't his anymore.

That's what disappointment does to a grown woman. It doesn't announce itself. It just quietly talks you into believing the palace was never really yours, so you settle into a life you were never built for and you call it peace.

What Does the Bible Say About Wanting More After Disappointment?

Meet the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4. She wasn't desperate. She was notable, she had resources, she had enough to build an extra room onto her house for a traveling prophet. And to bless her, Elisha spoke a promise over her. She was standing in the doorway when he said it, and that matters, because a doorway is a transition point. You're not in the room you came from, and you're not yet in the room you're walking into.

So Elisha tells her she's going to embrace a son. And watch how she answers. 2 Kings 4:16 (NKJV) says, "Then he said, 'About this time next year you shall embrace a son.' So she said, 'No, my lord. Man of God, do not lie to your maidservant!'"

You hear the pain in that? Don't set me up. Don't get my hopes up again. She'd wanted this before, and wanting it had cost her, so she'd made peace with never wanting it again. That's not humility. That's a wound talking.

God Keeps a File on the Desires You Filed Away

Here's what I need you to know. God isn't scared of the desires He gave you. Psalm 37:4 (NKJV) says, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart." Not the leftovers. The desires.

I know this one personally. When I was Simba's age, I wanted to be an OB-GYN. I held onto that dream through a teen pregnancy, I got to Michigan, I started down the pre-med road. Then organic chemistry and biochemistry looked at me and said no ma'am, and I had to pivot to public health. I thought that dream was dead and gone. But God had a file on it. More than twenty years later, I'm a doctor, and I get to lead huge programs alongside OB-GYNs that affect the health of women and their babies. He gave me the desire of my heart. He just did it His way, on His clock.

So the first move you make is a move backward. You go back for the dream you buried, the one you tucked away on purpose so it couldn't disappoint you a second time.

Take this to the Word yourself. 2 Kings 4:8-17, Psalm 37:4, Jeremiah 29:11.

What This Means for You

What's the one dream you stopped saying out loud because wanting it hurt too much the last time?

This is the first post in a five part series called Making Mad Moves, where we walk through the Shunammite woman and learn how to make bold, faith-filled moves in the seasons that try to talk us into settling. Next up, we're getting honest about the difference between a good life and the life God actually promised you.

I teach God's Word weekly inside the SheShed Community, and this is exactly the kind of teaching that hits different when you're in the room for it. The replay of this teaching, "Making Mad Moves," is available inside the community as well. Come sit with us.