Have you ever been disappointed or felt betrayed by God? Those feelings typically arrive when we feel that God let us down in some way or didn’t give us the desires of our heart. I’ve known a lot of people who were angry with God. I recall one man in particular that I worked with when I was a new believer in my college days. I rode in a company truck for two hours with him every day and each day I tried to share my faith in some way. One day he stopped me and said that he didn’t want me to talk about “the God stuff” anymore. He went on to explain that he had once been a strong believer and very involved in his church. But one day he had come home from work early only to find his best friend in bed with his wife. He said, “I decided right then that if that was how God was going to treat me after the way I had been serving him, I didn’t want any part of him.” I don’t know if he and his heavenly Father ever reconciled.
In his short book, Hiddenness & Manifestation, Graham Cooke speaks about the phenomenon of unmet expectations in our relationship with God. He says, “…if we’re honest, we sometimes have a perception of how God should be, how things should work, and what He should be doing. When things don’t happen the way we expect, we live with a sense of disappointment that maybe God has in someway let us down. The disciples said to one another, ‘We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.’ They had this expectation of God which he had no intention of fulfilling at the time. I wonder how many of us are living with an expectation of God which He has no desire or intention to fulfill in our life, because our expectation is flawed? Often our hopes and expectations about God are built on very shaky thinking and need to be pulled down” (p.27-28).
The Jews had a set of expectations regarding their Messiah that Jesus didn’t meet. They expected him to come as a statesman and a warrior to deliver them from Roman oppression. However, Jesus seemed to skirt politics and he told his followers to put up their swords rather than to raise an insurrection. The Jewish leaders expected the Messiah to come to them with praise for the way they had maintained traditions and kept the Law. I’m certain they expected to have seats of honor around him as he established his kingdom on earth. Jesus, however, had little to do with the Jewish leaders and little regard for them. Most of his encounters with them led to scolding them for their hypocrisy rather than praising them for their religious fervor. They expected Messiah to be born into an aristocratic family of the Jews and attend the finest rabbinical schools. However, Jesus was raised in the backwater town of Nazareth and attended only the local synagogue school. Jesus did not meet their expectations of Messiah so they killed him and, in a sense, missed God altogether.
My co-worker from years past expected God to override his wife’s and his best friend’s free will and to guarantee him a happy wife and happy life because he taught Sunday school and coached church softball. Others I have known felt betrayed by God when a loved one died or when a marriage ended in divorce as if God had contracted to keep us from all hardship if we were followers of Jesus. I believe that one of Satan’s great strategies is to establish unbiblical expectations about God in our minds so that sooner or later we will be disappointed and blame God for welching on a promise he never made.
If you were to sift back through the New Testament you would find that Jesus never promised smooth sledding but, instead, he assured us that in this world we will have trouble. He never promised “the good life” as the world defines it, but tells us clearly that in this world we will be persecuted because if we love Jesus the world will hate us.
God does not promise us a trouble free life. What he does promise is that he will be with us in all of our troubles. He does not promise a pain free life but does promise healing from the pain. On the other hand, He does promise to fulfill the desires of our hearts but some believers approach that promise as if God were a genie in a bottle doing their bidding. We need to understand that he fulfills the desires in our hearts when those desires are aligned with his heart.
An inaccurate expectation of how God works in our lives has caused many to miss the Father just as the Jews missed Messiah. If we find ourselves disappointed or angry with God, it might be good to examine the source of our anger and to make sure that we are not holding Gold responsible for something he never promised. It’s also good to get alone with God and air out your thoughts and feelings. Shout a little. Pace back and forth. Talk to God about your frustrations and ask him for a revelation that will help you understand what has happened in your life and how you can find his love in the midst of your pain. You will find that he is faithful and that he can be counted on to keep his word.
Expectations are important but if you have felt disappointment with God or are angry with Him,check your expectations. See if they are biblical as you consider the whole counsel of God rather than just one verse. But more than that, have it out with Him if you must. He can handle it and in the end, all He wants is for you know Him better and to trust Him again.
