Unfulfilled Expectations

Unfulfilled Expectations

Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; Deuteronomy 7:9 (KJV)

The little boy woke up early on Saturday. He wasn’t exited about watching cartoons or playing video games today, no, he was going fishing with his Dad. He had waited for this day for two weeks. He remembered the night when they were eating dinner and Dad had promised him that they would go fishing and today was the day. He got himself up, did his chores and even had his tackle box and pole ready to go. This was going to be the best day ever! Time passed and he didn’t hear any noise from his Dad’s bedroom. They usually got an early start maybe Dad was sleeping in. He sat on the porch dreaming of the fish they were going to catch and the great time he would have talking to his Dad and comparing their trophies. The morning was slipping away when Mom came out the front door. He jumped up ready to go when the words fell on him like a rock slide crushing his spirit. Dad had to go into work this morning and left before he had gotten up. There would be no fishing, no talking, no special moments spent together.

We have all experienced the sadness of unfulfilled expectations. Those moments when we were let down by someone that we thought we could trust. It might have been a parent, an employer, a co-worker, or friend but no matter who it was, the moment is easy to recall; it was if our boat was capsized on the sea of life. Sometimes those disappointments could have been avoided, sometimes the person could have chosen us over someone or something else but they didn’t and it hurt. Sadly, in some lives there is a litany of unfulfilled expectations that scar the fabric of our souls and leave us insecure and unwilling to trust anyone.

These unfulfilled expectations can leave us angry and that anger can lead to bitterness. Our view of the world becomes jaded and we find it hard to put our hope, our dreams, and our heart in the hands of others. People can’t be trusted so we turn inward to ourselves and believe that we are responsible for our own happiness. This manifests itself in many ways but the driving force behind all of the behaviors is that we feel insecure and compensate by placing our trust in money or possessions, perhaps we throw caution to the wind and “live for the moment” never finding any hope for tomorrow. But in all of this the most tragic part is that the enemy subtly steals our faith. We cannot put our trust in a God that allows us to suffer.

The essence of “el hanne eman”, The Faithful God is faith! We can trust Him. Satan loves to play the shell game with us. Moving the shells around on the table, diverting our eyes, and deceiving us into believing that God is playing tricks on us and He doesn’t have our best in mind. Isn’t that what Lucifer did in the Garden of Eden? He convinced Adam and Eve that God wasn’t faithful, you just can’t trust Him. He is hiding something from you. He knows that if you eat of that fruit you will be like Him! So don’t listen to God! Go ahead and eat. Attacking God’s faithfulness to us is the most effective way of destroying our relationship with Him.

We walk by faith and not by sight! If we can’t trust God with our lives then we won’t give our lives to Him. Knowing that God is working, even now, to bring about His will requires us to trust Him when we cannot see where life is taking us. We must understand that His love for us will never fail. Our God is holy, righteous, and in Him there is no shadow of turning. We have a firm foundation on which to stand and are built on nothing less than His Truth. Like the little boy who didn’t understand why his Dad had to go to work we often miss the bigger picture that God is working on because we are self-absorbed and see only our needs, our desires, and our passions. Believing that God is for us when things don’t work out the way we had planned allows us to take another step in our journey of faith.