Great Expectations

I’ve been climbing this mountain for most of my life and finally see the break of dawn just over the peak as I’m nearing it. My calves have cramped up and my feet are blistered. Even though I know that I only have a little longer to press on, it feels as if each step is heavier and heavier. With one last pull, I reach my arm up to the cleft above me and hang suspended for a moment. Heat rushes up my cheeks and this sour twist wrings in my stomach: “What if the view isn’t worth the climb? What if I’ve spent my entire life laboring for what is less than extravagant?”

Graduation is near. Eighteen years of work, enlightenment, and preparation for this one event. 

So why am I experiencing this sick feeling of dread when most of the graduates alongside me would love nothing more than to eat, drink, and be merry?

I can sum it up into one word: expectations.

What if I’ve worked all of this time and never find “the” job I’m looking for? What if I majored in the wrong thing? What if I take a job just so I can pay off my college debt and end up stuck and miserable? What ever happened to all of those dreams and great opportunities that my professors always talked about that come at the end of college? –in this economy, I’m most likely just going to be thankful for a job.

Friends, these thoughts did not come from the Prince of Peace. They came from the father of lies (John 8:44).

I have been a fool to give this voice my ear. You see, Truth would tell me that as long as I wrap the strings of my heart around riches or earthly gain, I will always, always be disappointed. No job or amount of success will fill my empty void. By the grace of God, I am a child of the light, a pilgrim who is merely visiting this place. My great Reward will come to fill me, and it will be everlasting, not like riches that perish. (Proverbs 8:18-21)

Can you imagine the disappointment that the Israelites felt when they neared the Red Sea? For so long, they had labored in slavery, fearing for their lives. After enduring the ensalvement of Pharaoh and watching the wrath of God play out in plagues, they followed Moses to the coast. 

When salvation didn’t seem possible immediately and in the ways that they had expected, they bitterly said to Moses: “…for it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:12 ). In this response, we can imagine that their hope was in what they could see: the water, and not in the Maker of it.

After generations of faithfulness to the people of Israel, God could easily have responded bitterly in return, allowing them to be swallowed up by their enemies, but instead, gave Moses instruction to speak comfort to the people and in courage, to press on. Mighty God parted the waters of the Red Sea so that in Him, they could escape to freedom. Talk about wrong expectations!

Conviction. Why do I so easily tend to forget all that my Savior King has done and revert to trusting only in what I can see, which leaves me feeling anxious and hopeless? I am worse than an Israelite!

I find it very interesting that God chose to save His people from their slavery in Exodus by parting the waters and in the New Testament chose to symbolize this salvation through submersing them in it. (Mark 1)

He is the God of matchless love for what is righteous and great wrath for what is evil. Just like in the Exodus, He saves His people from Himself (an ocean that He created and used to exercise His wrath on the Egyptians) AND like in the New Testament, saves us to Himself (baptism, representing the renewal and cleansing of a child of God who is united with Him through Jesus Christ).

There is nothing at all outside of His control and His ways will not mirror the ways of the world. He created water and can save or cleanse or destroy by it. Why would we think that He does not also have full control over those in whom He made in His image?

If your struggles of expectations are similar to mine, you are in need, as I am, of vision adjustment. God crafted our eyes and only He can give vision. Through His Word, He will help us zoom out of the maximized view of earthly gain that only deepens our emptiness and zoom in on all that deserves and satisfies our souls: Himself.  He will take our loose and wandering heart strings and tie them to Himself, giving us a new purpose, mission, and fulfillment that will continue on into eternity.

The sweet grace of it all is that God doesn’t ask us to lower our expectations at all. In fact, He commands us to raise them to nothing less than what He has promised:

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." -John 14:1-3



Let's wait upon the Lord together, with great expectations.