Some of the most gut-wrenching disappointments of my adult life turned out to be unexpected gifts from God. At the time, they felt devastating to what I thought I needed in life and where I thought I needed to be going, but looking back now, I see them differently. If someone had told me then that not getting that better-paying job was actually a gift from God, I probably would have responded with something like, “Oh, I guess I should say, ‘Gee, thanks, God. Thank you so much for not allowing me to be able to afford a dependable car.’”

I have to chuckle over that now. I distinctly remember my oldest son’s first vaccinations when he was probably two months old. I was holding him, and he was curious about what the doctor was doing. Then came the stick, and my son turned to me and looked at me with outrage. The look on his face was unmistakable. It said, “You have betrayed me.”

Well, all the current debates notwithstanding, we did it because we wanted to protect him from things that could harm him. In retrospect, I’m so glad we did, because he grew up healthy and strong. In the same way, God protects us not only from harm, but from settling for second or third best for our lives—or even a disastrous life that would merely serve as a warning to others.

Even knowing that God is continually looking out for us and wanting the best for us, it is easy to fall back into that trap of thinking we know what would be best for our lives. He wants us to learn the truth and recognize His wisdom, goodness, and grace, and if we did not get the message the first nine times He taught it, then a tenth lesson is almost certainly ahead.

I taught AP Macroeconomics from start to finish to many classes over the course of 20 consecutive semesters. It was the hardest subject I ever taught, but also the most rewarding. Most of my students were very sharp—what schools called “gifted and talented.” They had smart, analytical minds, but when I introduced economic principles, they often struggled because economists look at the world so differently from what they had been taught growing up.

Because these were students who had achieved great success throughout high school—some of them never making anything lower than an A—their early grades on quizzes and tests in my class could be devastating to their self-worth. I had a number of students who made grades in the 50s or 60s on their first quiz, and despite my telling them upfront that they were going to struggle in the beginning, many of them were crushed. Some told me that the grade they earned on my first quiz was the lowest grade they had ever earned in high school.

But I knew that if they stuck with the class, they were going to understand what I was teaching, and it would eventually make perfect sense to them. They just needed time to incorporate these principles into their minds.

For that reason, I offered heavy grade assistance to students in the beginning weeks of the class—a grade of 52 on a first quiz, if a student came to tutorial, became an 86. Trying to get students who had always been high achievers to see that I was on their side always took a lot of time and convincing. Not every advanced placement teacher is patient with early low grades, but something in me would not allow me to just record the number and move on.

I think that comes from seeing how God protected me from myself for many years. It is not something you understand while you are going through it, but looking back, it makes sense. After a while, one struggling student who was a regular at my after-school tutorials told me she knew what I was. Smiling, she said, “You’re a teddy bear.”

Well, I certainly could not call God the Father a teddy bear, but any love and care that I showed was a reflection of the love and care God has poured out on me. So when disappointments come our way—and they will—we have to keep in mind that we have a loving Father who looks out for us and wants only good things for us, so we need to look at disappointments in that light. We almost certainly will not know where God is taking us, but we can be confident that it is for our best if we belong to Him.

I know there will be many objections to statements like that. Some who have suffered horrific losses, like the loss of a dear loved one, cannot imagine how that was good, and that pain is very real. But we all know that we are all going to die one day, and ultimately—even in death—there is a greater good for those who are followers of Christ, because death is not the end.

My wife’s grandfather died when she was a child, and I have heard a story from the funeral many times. Some women from his church came up to my mother-in-law after the service and offered their condolences and told her that they had prayed and prayed that God would heal her father. My mother-in-law, an incredibly wise and godly woman, told the ladies, “Oh, he was perfectly healed.”

In the end, every disappointment, every loss, and every unanswered prayer for healing rests under this promise. As Paul wrote, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18, NKJV)