I went to a local eatery this week and ordered fajitas. Anticipating the sizzling skillet full of chicken strips, peppers, onions, beans, and rice – I was ready for dinner. What showed up was nothing like any ‘fajita’ plate! Boiled vegetables and chicken in a white tasteless sauce, flooding the rice and beans … served with corn tortillas. Yes, I experienced missed expectations. But, it was only dinner and not really a big deal.
Disappointments of a much larger scale and with more impact on our lives will come to each one of us. Nine years ago, the sledgehammer of death hit me hard. Bev, my late wife, wrestled with God as she lay dying. It was, at least in our understanding, an untimely death at the age of 61. I, too, struggled to reorient my dreams and hopes around a life without my loving partner.
So, what missed expectations are you wrestling with today?
In this world there are plenty of things that happen to us that can break our heart or at least frustrate us. You could name a dozen things in a moment, I’m sure!
My Dad was fond of saying that we can respond to life’s disappointments by becoming bitter or broken. Bitterness will cause us to close our heart off from life, to turn inward, and likely to turn into a hard, mean person. The Christian who chooses instead to let herself experience the pain, to weep, to set aside demands for immediate relief breaks the power of Self and opens her life to the amazing restorative Presence of God.
That is the essence of FAITH, the willingness to let God be God even when His ways are inscrutable. “Faith sometimes requires trusting God when there is no apparent evidence of him—as Job did. Trusting in his ultimate goodness, a goodness that exists outside of time, a goodness that time has not yet caught up with.” (Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey)
Psalm 73 brings the wonderful wisdom of God to us in times of missed expectations. I have read it too many times to count, each time finding diamonds of truth and powerful encouragement to renewed faith.
We do not know the reason for the writer’s disappointment and anger, but he is furious at the world and with God! He complains about the prosperity of the wicked, the apparent joy of those who have no regard for God and others. Can you feel the raw emotions in these words? "Was it for nothing that I kept my heart pure and kept myself from doing wrong? All I get is trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain." (Psalm 73:13-14, NLT) I confess that I have been in that place.
Then he goes to worship, entering God’s Presence, and with faith the song shifts to renewed hope. "Then I realized how bitter I had become, how pained I had been by all I had seen. I was so foolish and ignorant— I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you. Yet I still belong to you; you are holding my right hand. You will keep on guiding me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever." (Psalm 73:21-26, NLT)
In the middle of it all, take his counsel. Set aside the thoughts of revenge. Take captive the endless questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’ replacing them with a silent trust that rests squarely on God’s promise to be your eternal reward. Look upward and wait even when it hurts.
The word
from the Word is another favorite passage, drawn from the preacher Habakkuk. May
his faith inspire us to trust. "Even though the fig trees have no
blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop
fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the
fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will
rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He will make me as
surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains. (For the choir
director: This prayer is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.)" (Habakkuk 3:17-19, NLT)
O for grace to trust Him more! “Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.” (Disappointment with God)
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