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.

In The Smelting Pot

1 Samuel 24:10 (KJV) Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the LORD had delivered thee to day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee: but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the LORD'S anointed.

David is called “a man after God’s own heart”. There is no one thing that can be pointed to that would fully explain this description but I believe that the story recounted in 1 Samuel 24 helps to explain God’s regard for His servant David. David was on the run for his life. Saul, the King who David had been anointed to replace (but not just yet it would take 15 years from anointing to appointing), was determined to kill him. David and his men were hiding in a cave that Saul went into leaving his guards outside the cave.

For you Bible scholars the King James uses a euphemism in translation, “cover his feet”. As a child, I was always taught that Saul was sleeping. He wasn’t. This was an old English way of saying “answer the call of nature”.

As Saul was preoccupied, David’s men saw this moment as a chance for David to end his suffering and hiding by claiming what God had told him was his when Samuel anointed him King. Now all he had to do was kill Saul and take the crown. When we view our authority as the enemy it is easy to reason this way. We can fight against them and devalue them. Hasn’t God anointed my life? Don’t I hear from God? We can see all their faults and failures (often pointing them out to others) and feel like it is up to us to remove them from their position.

David didn’t see it this way. With all human reasoning telling David to attack the King, David refuses and honors his authority. The way we view and treat those in authority over us is directly related to the growth of our faith. When Jesus saw the Centurion, who spoke wisely of those in authority, He declared that in all of Israel He had not seen such great faith. Instead of killing Saul, David secretly cut off a piece of his robe and then watched as his tormenter walked away unhurt. David actually protected Saul from death at the hands of David’s friends.

We could learn a lot from David. In the smelting room of God’s furnace when the heat was applied, David came forth as gold. When we feel wronged do we lash out and try to seek revenge or do we wait on the Lord and show honor and love even to those that despitefully use us? This is perhaps one of the hottest parts of God’s oven but it is there that the image of Christ is brought forth.