You Can’t Disappoint God

In today’s episode, Dayna explores a powerful truth that challenges the way many Christians think about failure and faith: what if it’s actually impossible to disappoint God?

Dayna explains why God is never surprised by our mistakes and how the cross already accounted for every failure we would ever commit. Instead of living under the weight of shame, believers are invited to understand the difference between disappointing God and grieving Him — and why His response is always an invitation to return, not hide.

This episode is a reminder that grace was never meant to make us feel small. It was meant to bring us home. 🫶🏼

✨LINKS + MORE✨

shop my life application study bible: https://collabs.shop/4vd3j8 
DAYNA = 10% off entire Hosana Revival order!!

SOTE scents: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsotescents.com%2Fdiscount%2FDAYNA10&e=AT5EfpKObisJlNoBa5sxykCBCLKT6Dc_nidwBqthwyb_6GbUr98AleQCNuSKQY-HLRhh9URx300IaWcgoolm8umu1hTIonH1kpmZnFTwOmMrHwsI-DW3OqXYncQHMnzvzXdrcgk6pfkl

IG: @daynamaierr

TikTok: @daynamaier

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@daynamaier?si=POr4MUwRCBLhsCC-

SUBSTACK 💝 subscribe for weekly devotionals!! https://substack.com/@daynamaier?r=76g3v3&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile&shareImageVariant=blur

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Buckle up besties. We are back in our Bibles. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Gospel to Go, the bite-sized Bible study you can take with you anywhere. My name is Dana. If you're new here, I am so, so glad that you found this space. And if you are returning, thank you so much for coming back. Either way, I am just so grateful that you're here. Before we get into today's episode, I always like to start with a prayer. So if you're somewhere safe where you can close your eyes or bow your head, I invite you to do that. And obviously, if you're driving or walking or doing dishes or something, just listen along as we thank God for bringing us together today. Father, thank you for another day of life. Thank you for every person that is listening to this episode right now. I pray for my friend on the other side of this episode of this podcast, Lord, and whatever that they are carrying today guilt, shame, anxiety, regrets, um, that you would soften their hearts and remind them of your grace. Speak through this conversation, Lord, and help us understand your love a little deeper today. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Alright, you guys. So today I want to talk to you guys about something that may sound a little controversial controversial at first. I hope you guys cannot hear my dishwasher in the background. Okay, so this might just seem a little controversial at first, but I want to talk about how it is actually impossible to disappoint God. And maybe right away you're thinking, Dana, that literally can't be true. I disappoint God all the time. Maybe you feel like you have failed him. Maybe you feel like you haven't lived up to his standards. Maybe you are constantly replaying sins in your mind over and over and over again. All of the mistakes that you've made, the words that maybe you wish you didn't say or did say, the habits that you wish you could break. And when you think about those things, you start to believe this narrative that you've essentially let God down or disappointed him. But this is something that I want to challenge your thoughts with today. I really want you to think about this. God is never surprised by anything you do, He's not surprised by anything you do, anything I do, anything anyone does, right? Not one thing. He already knew. He always already knows. I saw this funny meme the other day that said something like, just so you know, when God placed a calling or a dream in your heart, he already factored in your stupidity. Or maybe it was like he already factored in your flaws or something, which is like funny, but it's also kind of true. God already accounted for your flaws, your mistakes, your weaknesses. Like nothing about you can or will catch him off guard. I just, I need you, like I just need someone to hear that. Literally nothing is gonna catch him off guard. I follow this really sweet girl on TikTok. Her name is Summer Noelle, and she posted a video that gave me this huge, like, aha moment. And that's kind of what I want to like base this podcast on today. She was talking about how God cannot be surprised because he's omniscient. That means he knows everything. He's omnipresent and omniscent. So he knows everything and he is everywhere at once. He knew every decision you would make before you were ever even born. He knew the mistakes that you would commit before you ever asked for forgiveness or knew how to speak, like how to even pray. Like he already knew the mistakes and he already knew every decision that you would make. And this is the crazy part Jesus still went to the cross anyway. Think about that. He came down from heaven. Jesus came down from heaven, took on human form, and died on the cross so that you and I could have eternal life with him. And he did that knowing exactly who we would be and what we would do. He knew every sin, he knew every failure, he knew every moment where we would fall short, and he still said they're worth dying for. He still said Dana is worth dying for. He still said Dan is worth dying for. He still said Sarah is worth dying for. Every mistake that they are going to make. Claire is still worth dying for. Hannah is still worth dying for. Okay. And when you understand that, it should make you unbelievably grateful that we live on this side of the cross. Do you guys know what I mean by that? On this side of the cross. We are living in today's time, right? Present time. We are on the side of the cross where Jesus has already died for our sins. And we quite literally have the, I shouldn't say easiest job because it's not easy always. Like sometimes it might feel like we have like our tail between our legs, like coming to Jesus asking for forgiveness. But truly, guys, based on what it was in the Old Testament, in the old times, before God sent his son to die for us, yeah, you guys just be grateful we live on this side of the cross. Before Jesus came, forgiveness looked very different. In the Old Testament, people had to sacrifice animals and bring offerings to atone for their sins. Like there was a constant system of sacrifice, but when Jesus came and died, he became the final sacrifice. Meaning the price for sin was paid once and for all. I like to think of it with this analogy. So I want you to imagine, I think I've talked about this before. I've definitely made a TikTok on this before. So maybe you've heard it, but imagine you've committed a crime and you were just sentenced to life in prison. Like let that sink in. Oh, I know where I use this analogy. It was in my one of my devotionals that are on Substack. Okay, so say that you're sentenced to life in prison. You're standing in the courtroom, the verdict is read, the punishment is final. Like you are going to prison for life. And then someone walks into the courtroom and says, Hey, like I'll pay the price. I'll take the sentence instead. They take the blame, they're gonna serve your punishment, and you get to walk completely free. That is quite literally what Jesus did for us. Instead of us having to pay the price for our sin, he paid it. He got on that cross and he died for you and I. That is grace, that is mercy, and that is the same God that is still living today. Sometimes I forget about that. I'll be like, wow, Jesus was like incredible. I wish I could have met him. Like, girl, you can. He lives. He lives today. He lives in me, he lives in you, he's all around us, right? He's omnipresent, he's everywhere at once. Okay, he knows everything, he's all knowing. He's here, he's here, he still lives today. And the Bible tells us his mercies are new every single morning. What a blessing, what a gift. Okay, so if God already knew every mistake that you'd make, then tell me. Please tell me, how could he ever possibly be disappointed in you? If God already knew every single mistake you would make, how could he possibly be disappointed in you? So, and this is where sort of the inspiration from Summer's TikTok comes into play. Disappointment requires unexpected outcomes. So think about all of the times that you've been disappointed before, maybe by like a friend or a family member, maybe by an event that just didn't go how you had hoped, or a book that wasn't as good as everyone said. Disappointment only happens when an expectation is unmet. So you have to have an expectation for something in order to be disappointed. Okay, but God doesn't have expectations for us because he already knows everything. Does that make sense? Like, nothing about your life. This was the aha moment. I was like, whoa, that's so true. Nothing about your life unfolded in a way that surprised him, and nothing that is going to unfold will surprise him. Now, this does not mean that God doesn't care about sin. Okay, it doesn't mean he is okay with us just like doing whatever the heck we want. The Bible actually says that sin grieves God, meaning it makes him sad. Did I say that right? Sin, God grieves sin. It makes him sad. Not disappointed. There's so there's a difference, okay. I think again, like it doesn't mean that God doesn't care about sin. He is still sad when we sin. Not disappointed, but grieved. And there really just is a big difference between those two things because disappointment often makes people feel very small. Like, I'm sure if you have disappointed someone before, you know what I'm talking about. It just makes you feel belittled, maybe ashamed, pretty embarrassed, like you need to run and hide. But grief invites restoration. Okay, so when someone you love is hurt by something that you did, you almost want to run to them and make it right. Like, think about when you were a little kid, right? If you messed up something in the house, there were probably two different reactions that you can imagine. Hold on, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. So think about when you hurt someone that you love and you want to just run to them and make it right. You want to apologize, you're like ready to repair the relationship. That is exactly what God invites us to do. He doesn't want you hiding from him, he wants you to run to him. Okay, so think about it now. Again, here's our analogy. You're you're a kid, okay? You messed up. There's probably two different reactions that you could imagine. One reaction was fear. Oh no, I messed up. I can't tell my parents. But the other reaction was trust. I messed up. I need to go tell my mom or dad. They'll help me figure this out. They'll know what to do. God wants to be that second reaction in your life, not someone you hide from, someone you run to. My dad actually sent me that meme like on Instagram the other day. It was like, I want my kid to like not say, Oh my gosh, I messed up. My dad's gonna kill me. Like, I want to call my dad, he'll know what to do. And that was where I had this like light bulb effect, kind of like another aha moment where I'm like, wait, that reminds me of God. God wants to be that person that you run to when you know something's wrong. You're like, God will know what to do. God already knows everything, remember? And the Bible tells us something really important. The only way to God is through Jesus, which means the more you get to know Jesus, the more you're gonna understand his heart, and the more you understand his heart, the more aware you become of the ways that you want to live differently. It really does happen that way. It's a verse in I should have come more prepared. I want to say it's Matthew, but I can I pause you guys really a second, really quick for a second. Oh my gosh, I can't speak. I'm gonna go double check this. Hold on. Okay, why did I say this is crazy that I said Matthew? Because it's Romans, and I just did an entire Bible study on Romans, which is why I think this was kind of in my head. It's Romans 7, 15. Um, and it's Apostle Paul basically just expressing the universal human struggle with sin. And he says, For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. So it's like kind of highlighting the conflict between the desire to do good. You want to be good so bad, but the power of sin dwells within us and it causes that frustration and like this feeling of just being a slave to sin or to wrongdoings. Um, and I just feel like that's like a perfect verse to highlight right now where it's like the more aware you become of the ways that you want to live differently, like out of love rather than fear, once you start living for God and you start doing more of your research and your studies on your own, you start praying by yourself, you start like branching out and going on this journey, you're gonna find that it makes it so much easier to follow I hate using the word easy because it's just never easy. The path is so narrow, right? The path is narrow. But you just it just makes it a little bit more, it feels a little more achievable, maybe, if that makes sense. For example, when I became, you know, when this when this whole thing started happening and I was like, whoa, I really want to like build my relationship with God. And I started, um, I I've talked about this before, but stopped like watching certain shows, and I stopped listening to certain music. And since then, things like that have creeped back in. I definitely do listen to more secular music than I did a few months ago. And sometimes I like to evaluate that. Like, hmm, I wonder why I'm feeling this way. Like, why am I opening up like my music playlist again and listening to a lot more rap than I was a couple months ago? That might be a message for another time because I could probably go off on a tangent with that. But I do feel like there were a couple sins in my life that I was living and I had always lived, just kind of like, eh, whatever, like cherry picking the Bible, cherry picking sins and not treating sin like it was equal. And um, I know I've talked about this before, and I have promised you guys an episode on this, and I will do one eventually, but sexual or like sex before marriage, okay. And I decided to, like, obviously, yeah. So I Danny and I took a step back, but I um don't think I've ever flat out said that on here, but that is what's happening. Um, and again, I I do want to talk more about it, but again, it it involves more than just me, right? So I plan to like have either Danny's permission or maybe even Danny come to speak on it. But, anyways, that is one that I do like to highlight a lot because it is something where I kept just saying, like, well, I've done it my whole life. Like, I've done it my whole life and things have still worked out a certain way. Like, I still have a good life. Like, why would I stop doing this? Like, I can remember genuinely just like being in the moment where I felt like, oh, I definitely gonna give that up, and being like, and hearing myself, and well, maybe it wasn't myself, it was God, being like, but why not? Like, that's supposed to be the point. Like, it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be a narrow path, right? And I don't even know why I went off on this tangent, and this is why I need to stick to my script, but um it's it's just like you know what you're supposed to do, and yeah, it can be hard, but I do think that the closer that you get to God, the more it's gonna feel like icky to you to continue living in sin. That's a good way to wrap that up. Okay, so I hope that that I hope that that makes sense. So um, if you've been walking around feeling like you have disappointed God, I really just want to challenge you to release that today. And I know, oh, take it, let's just take a deep breath. Truly, it can be very hard if we are hanging on to sin or just the doubt that we might have. And man, that enemy, he works hard, but we can't give him too much credit. Like, if you are continuously being reminded of your sin or you feel like your sin is looming over you, I invite you to just pray, pray, pray, pray about it. Release it. Remember, God already knew, He knows everything, He knows everything, He knows what you're gonna do tomorrow, and you don't even know. And you might say, Danny, yeah, I do. I have Pilates at eight, and then I go to work at 10, and then I'm gonna go to my friend's house at five, and then I'm watching the new episode of Secret Life of Silver Mormon Wise. Like, whatever it is that you think that you have planned, guess what? The whole day could go completely different. But God knows. There's literally like there's always the unknown for us, but God knows everything. He knows sins and mistakes that you're gonna commit 25 years from now. Whoa. Yeah. And guess what? He loves you anyway. He loved you when you sinned 15 years ago, and he loves you when still when you're gonna sin 15 years from now. And he sent his son for you anyway. And he still invites you to come back to him today because grace was never meant to make you feel small. Remember that feeling of being of disappointing your parent and feeling you needed to run from them. Like that is never what God's purpose was. It's not what he wants to do, and he never wants grace to make you feel small. Grace was always meant to bring you home and to bring you to heaven. And when you repent and you ask for forgiveness and you pray and you meditate on those mistakes that you have made, and um continuously like trying to make yourself better and make yourself new in Christ, you will get there and it will be so rewarding. So rewarding, you guys. What a short episode today. I'm like actually not even ready to end it. I feel like, do I have any updates for you guys? Should I update you on some stuff before I let you go? I feel like this is so weird to like not be talking to you for 30 minutes. I guess I didn't realize how short that was, but I I feel like it was a powerful message. Like I hope that you guys still feel like, you know, there was a good message here, even though we weren't as chit-chatty today. Um, if this episode encouraged you, I, you know, I hope that you'd maybe send it to someone who might need to hear it, maybe a family member or a friend. I love when you guys share the podcast on your stories. Um, tag me always, or you know, when you share with a friend, like that is the way that we can get the word out to our sisters and brothers in Christ. Although today I didn't even really share any, I guess I did share one verse, but I always feel a little bit weird when I talk and don't really like cite the Bible. I feel like that's the whole point of me doing this, and especially with it being like gospel to go, we should be talking about the Bible. Um, but I just felt like this was a message that I needed to hear. So I know somebody else probably needed to hear it. Um, but, anyways, if you guys care to hear a little more uh update on my life, you can stick around for a couple minutes. I won't make it too long. I have started putting together my wedding invitations, which is so exciting. Danny, my fiance, and I, we get married in June, and I'm super pumped. Um, so wedding advice should be going out next week. My mom and mother-in-law are coming over Saturday to like help us assemble the rest of them and just cross-check the addresses because wow, I completely underestimated how hard it would be to uh write out 130, 150 different addresses and make sure that they were right and everyone's name is spelled right. Um, but yeah, that's exciting. We have paid off our venue. Praise God. Praise, praise, praise the Lord. Um, we are pretty much done with paying a lot of our like vendors. Uh, we just need to pay our honeymoon, which will be fun. We're going to Punta Cana. Very excited for that. I picked up vlogging again. So, you guys, if you uh enjoy watching long form content or if you enjoy like this yip-yapy chit-chatty stuff that I like to do on the podcast, if you enjoy the podcast, you'll enjoy the YouTube vlogs because they're very real and they're very much just like week in my life like stuff. And I just feel like right now I have a lot going on between work and then like juggling content creation and influencing at the same time, plus like the wedding stuff and all of that. Um there's just a lot going on. So I feel like sometimes there's just fun stuff to capture over there. So my YouTube, I'll leave my YouTube linked below, but it is linked in like my bios if you follow me on Instagram or TikTok. So yeah, keep an eye out for vlogs periodically. I'm super excited to get that back into uh into gear because I really do love like filming and vlogging for you guys. So let me know if there's anything you want to see over on YouTube. But yeah, as of now, that's pretty much all I can think about. So um I do really hope that you guys love this episode. I again just want to thank you so, so, so much for being here. You guys truly do not know how incredibly grateful I really am. And I know I say it all the time, but truly, you guys, like I just love you so much. I do, I do, and Jesus loves you. So don't forget it. All right, you guys, I will see you in the next episode.