Great Expectations

Back in the early 1700’s, a well-known British poet named Alexander Pope once quipped, “Blessed are they who have no expectations; for they shall never be disappointed.”

Spot on, Mr. Pope. We have more expectations every single day of our lives than we realize. We presume that, wherever we are headed, we will arrive there safely. We assume that the overpass we are driving under will hold up!  We plan that the day will go smoothly, just as we expect-with no earthquakes or alien invasions.  We dare say we will eat throughout the day and have an ample supply of clean, drinking water. We anticipate that our family, friends, neighbors and perfect strangers will treat us with respect. We expect newly elected politicians to keep their promises, and we imagine people will deeply appreciate it when we’ve done something really nice for them. Parents expect their children to respect and obey them, and, in return…(or maybe retaliation?) children expect their parents to be perfect. (Poor, naïve little darlings!). We suppose people will believe our side of the story…(I mean, why on earth wouldn’t they!)

Yet more significantly, we also hope that everything will be fine. That those we love will always be here. That throughout the moments, days, and years of our lives, we and those we cherish will fare well, with no unexpected difficulties or distress. However, the Word of God gives us much insight as to how we should view life. There are just some verses in the Bible where it seems as if God pulls us to his side, holds us close, and lovingly instructs us:

“ Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:” 1 Peter 4:12

 ^“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

As a Christian and a pastor’s wife for many years, I have spoken with numerous women. Easily thousands. Good women in all stages of life. Girls navigating the dreams, drama, and discoveries of the teenage years. Single women with the hopes of marriage and those endeavoring to process the realization that they may indeed remain single. Young wives and mothers, middle-aged women in the throes of figuring out their marriages, and temperamental teenagers. Older women whose families have left them to sit alone in a wheelchair in a house where, once upon a time, the hallways rang with their children's laughter.  Women approaching 100 years on this terrestrial globe. Troubled women who find it hard to forgive themselves for the wakes they have left behind. Women struggling with ungodly, unfaithful husbands. Women at the threshold of eternity. I have listened to all of them, and never once have any of these women expressed absolute composure or unconcern when confronted with life's unexpected blows. The great majority of times (and I will include myself in this), as Christians, we are stunned. Upended. The world turned upside down. May I speak plainly of the Lord I reverence, treasure, and deeply love? I just didn’t think he would let this happen to me.

So the question begs to be asked, “How are we to live by faith and move forward when things don’t end up the way we prayed they would? Now I’ve known some high and mighty Christians in my time, who, in all their abundant wisdom, assume the chair when instructing one who is struggling through adversity,  “Just be a good Christian!” they lecture. “Accept it and move on!”

Uh-huh.

A personal story, if I may.

One day, about ten years ago, I was buzzing around the kitchen when my good husband walked out of his office and sat at our kitchen table. I walked over to him. “You know, Liz, I’ve been studying the attribute of the faithfulness of God. I am absolutely convinced that we can trust him implicitly…” That was the exact word he used. Implicitly. Unconditionally. Unquestionably. I stood there, taking in every word from this man for whom I had (and have)  the most profound respect, surpassed only by my deep and unwavering love for him. He began to choke up. “I can’t wait to preach this on Sunday,” he said, tears filling his eyes. “It will help so many people to know God can be trusted in any circumstance, in any trial, and that he will be completely faithful.” I smiled at him and hugged him. I think I said something like, “ I love you, John; you're such a good man.”

Within ten minutes from that moment, my husband could not move the right side of his body. In less than one hour, he was rushed to the hospital, where he suffered a massive stroke. As the attendants in the emergency room lifted him onto a stretcher and rushed him to the OR, he reached out his hand to me, but they took him away so quickly that we missed that final grasp. I stood there and sank to the floor, right in the middle of the ER, and sobbed.

Now, let me ask you: how could something so catastrophic happen to such a good, godly man, who truly did live his life in every way to back up those wise and weighty words he said at our kitchen table earlier that day? I can’t answer that, but I can tell you this-as we endured the ups and downs through months of the recovery process, we knew nothing else but to trust God implicitly. And we found him, on this new road, in often frightening, touch-and-go circumstances, to be completely faithful.

God, in his unparalleled wisdom, has a way of illuminating the Christian throughout the events he allows or designs to enter their lives.  In teaching us the value of the ordinary, uneventful day, in which the simple, everyday routine life becomes the very best, most valued, treasured life. Moreover, in doing so, He provides undeniable evidence that godliness with contentment is great gain.

There are three kinds of events in the lives of Christians that take us by surprise:

1. The times when the rug is jerked right out from under us. The accident, the sudden shock, the terrible diagnosis, the sickness, the loss, the betrayal…
2. The times when the things we fervently prayed would happen- didn’t.
3. The times when the things we faithfully prayed would NEVER happen- did.

Another personal example, if you would be so kind as to indulge me. Re: The things we faithfully pray would never happen. 

Our firstborn son was a strikingly handsome guy. Athletic, magnanimous, fun-loving, and life-loving. Everybody loved John. How he became so physically fit and conscious of healthy eating habits is beyond his Baby-Boomer Twinkie-eating, Slurpee-sipping mother. Nonetheless, he was all about working out and fitness. He married, at age 29, a beautiful, talented, lovely girl in church, and off they went to live “happily ever after”. About a year after their first little son was born, John started to have a weakness in his right arm—nothing a good workout couldn’t handle. Nothing swallowing more supplements couldn’t remedy! Before the birth of their second son, it was determined that John had a brain tumor. The worst kind possible. For almost seven years he valiantly struggled, and we all prayed day and night for the Lord to take away this monstrous invader. A week and a half before Christmas, a few months after his 36^th birthday when his beautiful little boys were 6 and barely two, we stood crying at his graveside. A pastor friend of ours took my husband and me aside. With tears in our eyes, we confessed that we couldn’t understand why this happened. We prayed so hard. We claimed so many verses… was it something we missed… did we do something wrong? With the wisdom only an older, so much wiser preacher could possess, he replied without missing a beat, “John and Liz, this is God’s business. You have got to leave it all in His hands.”  Those words reshaped the way we think about the events of our lives, particularly the situations that just make no sense.

I would imagine most people, maybe women especially, have some area of our lives that keeps us awake in the middle of the night. Some fear, some worry, some unresolved conflict, some great need. We all have that situation or person that makes us wonder: Why, how, when, and, the dreaded, what if?

We read in God’s Word that Paul prayed three times about a thing that troubled him. I wonder if he prayed like some of us: “Lord, I am not asking you for a million dollars. I am just asking you for this one thing. I’ve survived the shipwrecks, the imprisonments, the beatings.  I am just asking you, please help with this one thing.”  Also worth contemplating is that Paul prayed only three times.  Because when you think about the serious trials you and I have encountered, if you’re anything like me, we’ve probably prayed more like 300 times! Then I consider the instances when Paul walked right up to someone and just performed a miracle. God immediately answered his prayer, and Paul just did it. No sweat, no crying, weeping, pleading. Like the time Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Melita and the chief’s father was about to die.  Paul prayed, put his hands on him, and healed him. One prayer-just one- answered in a nanosecond.

He also didn’t have to pray three times in Acts chapter 20 when a young man fell asleep and quietly slipped out of a third-story window while listening to one of the Apostle’s lengthier sermons.  As soon as he hit the ground, it was lights out. Paul ran down to him, scooped him up into his arms, embraced him, and God brought him back to life.  Now here is a curious thing. Why were those miracles, and so many more, permitted for others, when the greatly beloved Apostle Paul remained wanting? The only answer can be that Paul’s personal requests in this case were, for reasons known only to our heavenly Father, simply overruled.

In the Bible we are instructed to pray about everything. And what would we do without this tremendous access to God! Prayer is life and breath to the Christian. However, what are we supposed to think when we’ve been faithfully praying for something that seems so right or imperative, when suddenly, in a heartbeat, it’s too late? We’re stunned.  Our prayers weren’t answered the way we hoped they would.  What is your response when, for reasons known only to God, you have been overruled? 

One last illustration, though not as weighty as the previous ones. I know many of you are dealing with things that are anything but this simple, but I think the analogy is worth sharing:

Once we had a pleasant cabana-type thing on our back deck. I loved to go outside early on summer mornings, before anyone else had stirred, and sit under the shade of that sheltering tent. Often, our family would gather beneath it in the evening and just laugh and chat and solve all the world’s problems.

But one morning, as the end of fall was approaching, my good husband stood stirring his coffee at the kitchen window and looking out at the cabana; he said, and I quote, “We need to figure out how to take that thing down before it snows.” End quote.  The rest of us in the family (who would’ve most likely been involved for an entire day disassembling it and then figuring out where on earth to store the thing) begged to differ… unfortunately.  “Oh, it should be fine…” we countered.  “We sat under it when it was raining and windy, and it held up just fine.” Not long after, surprising everyone but my good husband, along came a winter storm named Jonas and dumped more than two feet of snow on Long Island.  One of our girls looked out the kitchen window that fateful day, and suddenly gasped, “Oh no! Look at the cabana!” Its canvas roof had caved in, and our strong, sturdy cabana lay buried in an avalanche of snow.  The supporting poles, now bent and poking out in random directions, let us know the entire thing had simply collapsed beneath the weight of the snow. Kaput! My wise husband just stood silently at the window and stirred another cup of coffee…  The reason we could sit under our cabana on rainy or windy island days with confidence was that it was constructed with specifications that enabled it to bear a particular weight load.

According to 1 Corinthians 10:13, God considers the weight load before He allows trials and tests in our lives.  And He knows what we can handle.

^“ There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Our loving, heavenly Father would not allow us to go through a storm if he hadn’t first qualified us to weather it. The problem for me has been that sometimes I don’t feel like I can weather it!  In fact, ashamed as I am to confess it-there have been times that, in the midst of whatever was happening-I threw my own little storm! (And a person like that is always sooooo great to have around when things are already awful enough!) Crying and praying and begging and questioning, and sure I was almost dying! God knows what we want (Many times we want out!) and how very badly we think we need it, but he also knows what is best for us.  Here’s a golden key to the Christian life. It is a key that unlocks the door and brings you into a peaceful place. Over the door is written, “Trust God Implicitly”.

It must be understood that there is a process every true Christian must embrace and endure. You will surely endure it. You will get through; God promises this. But I intentionally say to learn to embrace it, for it is in embracing the trial, submitting to God, that you are trusting God implicitly. And in the embracing and trusting you are changing and growing. You will find God’s grace is abundant. He is faithful. God has a plan, but his plan is a process: God is using every event in our lives to conform us to the image of Christ. 

I know you feel like you cannot handle it, and often, it feels as though you’re just going to be crushed beneath the weight of it all. Yet, whether you’re frightened, defeated, greatly concerned, so very sad, betrayed, or being assaulted from all sides, you have the Spirit of God living within you, and he is able to meet your greatest need.

Of the many commonalities God’s children share, one of the most powerful is that we will go through trials. Trials produce meekness-that most wonderful grace, so closely woven with humility, which enables us to give everything over to God. And meekness produces wisdom, which, in turn, teaches us how to behave and persevere through trials.

Our friend Charles Spurgeon knew a thing or two about great trials. And with the deep, spiritual understanding only a seasoned saint can muster, he wrote the following:

“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

The lesson? Whether trials and heartaches, unanswered questions, or fears- all are used by God in the life of the believer. Never to crush us, but only to compel us to hold fast to Christ.

Thank you so much for reading!

In Christ, Who is our life,

Liz