Why Are We Surprised?

Dawn Dyson
3 days ago
9 min read

The Scripture says, No man who believes in Him [who adheres to, relies on, and trusts in Him] will [ever] be put to shame or be disappointed (Romans 10:11, AMPC).

Have you been disappointed in people lately? If so, please remember something:

We have been given the Word of God; a manual, a script, a guidebook, the TRUTH of LIFE and the Divine Plan of all of God’s Creation. We have been given Christ Himself, so why are we so surprised? …Whether it be what was just lied about on the news, all the way down to the conduct of that person at the office or your son/daughter, or any other person here.

We tend to say, think or go through the energy-draining experience of “losing our peace” when things people do or say “shock us”. Honestly, the sin principle at work (where errant human beings behave foolishly) should not surprise saints who read the Word of God. Why should the sin principle cause YOU to lose anything of Christ’s?

The truth is believers do not lose their PEACE

because they do not lose Jesus Christ.

He is the Prince of Peace.

We do not lose Jesus or His peace. …Not for a moment, because remember He has promised this, to GOD: Thus what He had said was fulfilled and verified, “Of those whom You have given Me, I have not lost even one” (John 18:9, AMPC).

When the Word tells you to be “anxious for nothing”, it is telling you through DIVINE AUTHORITY that is doesn’t matter what he/she just said; it doesn’t matter what he/she just did—YOUR strength and abilities REMAIN in line with TRUTH and with JUSTICE. So hold fast to what (WHO) you know. Sin should never steal your joy; it cannot steal your placement with God. Period. You are, as a believer secured by the Blood of Christ, unshakable. All else can and will be shaken.

Let it shake. Let it fall. Let it break. Let it crumble. YOU simply hold Jesus’ hand and carry on. He is building faith and you and I need to let Him do it.

One of the mysteries of the Christian faith is that we’ve (at least perceptually) always been such a small percentage of the whole, yet Christ and the Holy Spirit of God within us has impacted the world immensely, in immeasurable ways.

God can use One.

With these limited and narrow, earth-bound perceptions of ours, it is amazing how we Christians just don’t think on things the Word plainly says to us. For example, in both John and Malachi, the Word states that most do not and will not even recognize or perceive Christ:

John answered them, I [only] baptize in (with) water. Among you there stands One Whom you do not recognize and with Whom you are not acquainted and of Whom you know nothing (John 1:26, AMPC).

For behold, the day comes that shall burn like an oven, and all the proud and arrogant, yes, and all that do wickedly and are lawless, shall be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings and His beams, and you shall go forth and gambol like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy (Malachi 4:1-2, AMPC).

For this very reason, God has given us “discernment”. But for many modern-day believers, this powerful tool from the mind of Christ has been demoted, tarnished, and diminished into “disappointment” with people. Refer once again to our opening passage which states believers will not ever be disappointed in CHRIST.

So what is happening to us as a body of believers? We are out of the Word and into the world (work, people, news…fear and disillusion) and we cry when it “disappoints” us with its evil conduct. The Word of God bringing Light (Christ), which clarifies and dispels all darkness, chaos, confusion, gives you your straight-line, Divine purpose! You are full of the Word, not the world.

Here is discernment, and it BEGINS WITH talking about the Lord God and His Word…

Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name.

And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I publicly recognize and openly declare them to be My jewels (My special possession, My peculiar treasure). And I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.

Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him (Malachi 3:16-18, AMPC).

BRING IT! BRING the GOSPEL MESSAGE of JESUS CHRIST straight into that errant disappointment and do not apologize for it!

You see, the great “DIVORCE” God speaks of in Malachi is not just between sinful man and the wife of his youth, no… It is between God and man. The Great Divide. The intertestamental period is the “wilderness”, the winter, the void, the cavern, the valley of the shadow of death, forged between God and man UNTIL JESUS CAME.

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, ESV)!”

So our job is the very same job Christ commissioned you and I with in Matthew 28:16-20. This is the very reason we are still in the world, but we are NOT to be of the world or we have reverted, or been perverted and deceived by the enemy of God, that Old Deluder, Satan.

We are to SPEAK IT. So do carry that Divine Word into human opportunity! To do this we need discernment, particularly during spiritual wars (see Ephesians 6:10-20). Discernment is “the power or faculty of the mind, by which it distinguishes one thing from another, as truth from falsehood, virtue from vice; acuteness of judgment; power of perceiving differences of things or ideas, and their relations and tendencies.”[1]

Discernment is necessary or we have no clear path to mark the fight.

The Scripture says, No man who believes in Him [who adheres to, relies on, and trusts in Him] will [ever] be put to shame or be disappointed... For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord [invoking Him as Lord] will be saved.

But how are people to call upon Him Whom they have not believed..? And how are they to believe in Him…of Whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?

And how can men [be expected to] preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings! [How welcome is the coming of those who preach the good news of His good things!]

But they have not all heeded the Gospel… So faith comes by hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the preaching [of the message that came from the lips] of Christ (the Messiah Himself) (Romans 10:11-17, AMPC).

A “proclaimer” is a preacher, a writer, a believer, who simply (yet effectively) points all these lost people to Christ at every opportunity.

The surprising thing is that we, as the modern-day church, have watered it down to such an extent that we are weakening ourselves. This is “spiritual anemia” and we are making ourselves ill by allowing the world to drain our energy.

Though it was promised that CHRIST is the LIGHT and to Him, in Him, and through Him, we have favor upon favor, and the authority and the grace of GOD, OTHER PEOPLE will still fail to believe in Him, fail to perceive Him, fail to even see Him.

OTHER PEOPLE

Take care not to “care too much” that you won’t convict with the Word of God. The same issue transitioned Lot’s wife right into a useless statue. She didn’t get the pattern. Tell them; pray for them; then leave men to their choice—but you be sure to keep your own Choice intact and guarded. Follow God over anything and anyone else (see Exodus 20:3; 1 Kings 18:21; John and Revelation 3:16).

OTHER PEOPLE

What is the concern here to what God will reclaim and save and to what God will toss into the fire? What is the concern here? Do we not trust God with His Own creation? If we are more concerned with pleasing people and appeasing their multitude of sins, and less concerned with bringing these to CHRIST, the Word of God states their blood is on our hands.

If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you do not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand (Ezekiel 3:18; AMPC).

That is what is wrong with the church today. It isn’t the fallen world. Rather, it is no boldness, no clarity of purpose, no determinedness, no recognition of the Divine. The love is growing cold and it renders saints as backsliding and ineffective. The dying back of the Church of Christ, when she should be stepping forward and leading like never before, is the real surprise that shocks our consciences.

And the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity, But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom (the Gospel) will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then will come the end.

So when you see the appalling sacrilege [the abomination that astonishes and makes desolate], spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place–let the reader take notice and ponder and consider and heed [this]–[Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11] (Matthew 24:12-15, AMPC).

If the statistic equates the stars of light (Christians) compared to darkness (unbelievers) in the night sky, does it make mathematical sense to you to be anxious about being placed next to the void? No. It then becomes LIFE to us to hear, recognize, know, appropriate for ourselves the directive of Christ to be ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING here.

Is your job to make sinners happy? No. Your job is to tell sinners about Jesus. There is a very large difference. You love them. You tell them. You move on. You do not regulate your own internal health by their level of external sin that day. You are going up; they are going down. Say a prayer. Bring the Word. Point. And YOU keep walking toward the Light. YOUR JOB is to KNOW CHRIST JESUS and do not forget Him. Hold fast to what you know. Let your face shine.

I am coming quickly. Hold tight what you have, so that no one will take your crown [by leading you to renounce the faith] (Revelation 3:11, AMP).

There is a reason why Christ told you to not be anxious about anything or anyone. There is a reason why Christ has bequeathed you His peace…

Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV): "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".

Matthew 6:34 (ESV): "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble".

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV): "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

John 14:27 (NIV): "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you... Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

If we are anxious, if we think we are "losing our peace" (which believers cannot), we are reverencing man (and suiting his purposes) rather than God (and suiting His Purpose). Let me tell you something: You and I come no where near loving that person more than their Creator does.

So if other people who do not know Christ lie, cheat, steal, kill and destroy, it should not surprise you. Rather, it just confirms beyond the shadow of a doubt the Word of God is true.

We Believers in Christ Jesus have a lot of work to do. Be clear about what this work actually is. And make very certain you are not turning away from Him in your service of man, making a false god of your “usefulness”.

Our only usefulness to God is our unity with Him through Christ Jesus.

God Himself does all the Good.

Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will].

Do not quench (suppress or subdue) the [Holy] Spirit;

Do not spurn the gifts and utterances of the prophets [do not depreciate prophetic revelations nor despise inspired instruction or exhortation or warning].

But test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; [to that] hold fast.

Abstain from evil [shrink from it and keep aloof from it] in whatever form or whatever kind it may be.

And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself] and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you] (1 Thessalonians 5:19-24, AMPC).

May God bless you.

REFERENCES

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

King James Version (KJV), Public domain.

[1] Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Retrieved May 10, 2026 at https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/discernment

DAWN DYSON