Disappointment: Great Expectations

So I do not have all the answers to disappointment. I think there are many things that we will not fully understand about God for probably a very long time. But I do think God gives us enough evidence to believe if we choose.  Therefore, I attempt to share some of the things recently that have helped me in my disappointment with God.  

My hook for falling into major disappointment with God is my great expectations.  I think God is mighty and powerful and I should be able to expect certain things from Him.  Now this is where things get sticky. Can we expect things from God?.... yes! Can we always be sure of what action God is going to do? .... No. This can become a real problem in discerning, and can quickly get me in trouble because I start to place God in a box, and start predicting what I think God will do or should do.  As if I know His will and plan in detail. 

When we are in pain and struggling with something big in our lives, we want to believe in a big God that will come to our rescue and sweep in and save us like we have read in so many books.  Even many Christian inspirational books are full of stories of miracles and amazing things that happen to people who have prayed and believed.  Their loved one was saved, or cancer cured, or recieved money right before a house was to be foreclosed.

I get caught not so much with earthly things lately but with spiritual things.  I am praying for someone and suddenly things get worse and they are doing worse and seem farther away from God than before I started praying.  Or I try to fast and pray to get closer to God and a veil seems to fall over me and I feel totally disconnected, worse off than when I started.  It's these things where I lose my way.

My thoughts are "God surely wants to save this person.  It has to be His will"  "God surely wants me to draw nearer to Him, this has to be in His will"  Now are these things true? Yes!

• 1 Timothy 2: 3-4 - "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" NIV
• James 4:8 - "Come near to God and he will come near to you..." NIV

The problem comes when I take these promises and truths and think God must act a certain way, or I build up in my head the ways I feel He should show Himself and work miracles.  As I pray and do what I think I should then my expectations get bigger and bigger and I climb higher on the ladder that I have built.  My thoughts go from trusting God to trying to will God to do what I think He should. It is so subtle I don't even know I'm doing it sometimes.   Then when things don't work out the way I think, I go into major faith crisis. I go from anger, to blaming myself for not doing the right things, to having issues trusting God.  I think "Why won't God do for me or my love ones what he has done for others?"

What can we expect from God?

• He will never leave us. 
• He will work out things for our best. 
• He will give us the Holy Spirit freely.
• He will forgive us if we confess.
• He will finish the good work He started in us. 
• (I'm sure there are more you could add to the list)

Notice most of these have to do with the internal world and not external.  Even when the scripture says He works things out for good, we think we know what good is, but most of the time God is looking for eternal good not always what our version of good is.  God works in many ways but always with the eternal and spiritual in mind.  And a lot of the times, outside of our understanding as finite human beings.

So how do we as Christians believe in a messed up world and trust even when we have been greatly disappointed?  It is not easy sometimes.  When I was researching this topic the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came to my mind and what they told King Nebuchadnezzar.

• Daniel 3:17-18 - "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

This is some amazing faith!  They believed that God could totally save them if He wanted to, but they also knew that sometimes He doesn't.  They chose to believe anyway! They trusted that God knew the eternal outcome for good and the physical one was not the most important. They understood that this world is a war zone and with many unhappy endings as it would seem in our small human view.  But that God's view is much bigger and wider able to see the spiritual and eternal importance beyond.  They chose to cling to hope & trust rather than expect a certain outcome in the now.

So I guess for me I realize, in light of my disappointment, that I was building up great expectations and attaching them to my faith.  That somehow if these things don't work out, God is not who He says He is.  The devil loves to try and get us to believe this in our disappointment and pain. I realized I am putting God in a box and demanding He prove Himself to me, rather than trusting the hundreds of other things He has done in my life. I am not believing that no matter what things appear, He IS working things out for good spiritually and eternally beyond my view.

• 2 Corinthians 4:18 - "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" NIV

Great Expectations can get us in trouble but Great Hope (faith) trusts God is who He says He is and will work things out for Good for the spiritual and eternal of all His kids. We can expect God will do HIS thing NOT OUR thing, and one day we will get to see more why.