It’s a little tricky to share notes since a lot of it is stories, etc. But maybe this will be helpful for someone, and for any of you ladies who wanted to jot down things from the weekend. Hope this helps.
INTRO:
I’ll be sharing a lot about my life, so for now by way of simple introduction basically I’m just a girl, with a wonderful husband, a 20 month old son, and another on the way. We both graduated from Oregon State in 2001, and now are both full-time seminary students (I’m taking my last class right now). I feel like our life has been one ridiculous adventure after another, and while sometimes I think, Maybe, Lord we could just have a normal life? I know that it’s His grace that allows us to join Him in His adventure and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
So as you know, the theme of the weekend is Expectancy.
We have four sessions, and we’re basically going to go on a journey together. I believe that God wants to get us to an end point, but each step, each leg of the journey is key. It’s important that we follow every step along the way. So, we’re going somewhere this weekend, and I pray you’ll just jump in with both feet and join me on the journey. Bear with me too because tonight we’re not even going to study much Scripture, I just want to share our little story and then tomorrow we’ll delve more into studying God’s Word.
The times I have grown the most in my walk with God are the times when I’ve allowed myself to experience and process the very real feelings of hurt, anger, disappointment, hope, expectancy, confusion. We are not here to sit around and pretend like we have it all together. We’re here to grow, to let God reach into those recesses of our hearts, even to the places that hurt so bad we don’t want anyone to touch them. So all I’m asking is that you silently, right now, say yes God, I’ll follow you on the journey. I’m going to share a lot of the real raw painful processing right from my journals. I don’t look good in all of them. But I’m not with you this weekend to look good, I’m here to prayerfully share little nuggets of truth that God’s been gracious to show me, and hopefully one or two will be for you.
DISAPPOINTMENT
So, if I had to sum up Jeff’s and my life for the past four years since we’ve been here at Calvary, I’d say that it has been a hands-on lab in the study of disappointment. Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some wonderful experiences, but all in all, a common thread throughout this season has been a really frequent occurrence of disappointment. I don’t even need a show of hands to know that we all have experienced disappointment. I looked up the word disappointment in my dictionary and it said “thwarted expectation.” Hm.. Thwarted expectation. Well what we’re going to talk about tonight is that-expectations and what happens when they are thwarted. You even notice that birthdays, anniversaries, and sometimes even Christmas and other special occasions sometimes turn out to be some of the most depressing times? The problem is that we come to these times with expectation. I remember Jeff and my first Valentine’s Day as a couple. [SHARE STORY]
Disappointment is basically when the circumstance is other than what we had built up in our minds that it should be. We frequently call it “getting our hopes up” and then being disappointed. I cannot tell you how I have wrestled with this the past year, how I wrestled with not wanting to “get my hopes up” about something, and then realizing that I’ve done it despite all my efforts, and then when the walls fall down around me I am left totally confused, disillusioned and crushed. I am, in a word, disappointed. If I had to title this little talk tonight, I would call it “the God of Disappointment.” I propose that God strategically disappoints us, or thwarts our expectations, so that He can prove Himself greater and more glorious than we had ever imagined. Each night we’re going to focus on one main narrative story from Scripture, and touch on others quickly as we go. Tonight is Abraham.
So, consider:
- Abraham (Genesis 13-22): God promises he will be the father of many nations right? Then what? He can’t have kids. He’s disappointed. Expectations thwarted. He then gets so frustrated he takes matters into his own hands and has Ishmael, the child of the flesh through his servant Hagar. Bickering and grief ensue.
- Timeline: 75 years old: promise given (Gen. 13:14-15 (first place mentioned, reiterated often)). 85 years old (10 years), take matters into own hands with Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 16:3). 100: son of promise is born (21:5). 15 years after the attempt of the flesh. 25 years after the initial promise. Sometimes the most detrimental disappointments aren’t those that are a quick devastating blow, but those that are just last a long, long, long, long, long, long time or are the same little disappointment over and over and over. We tend to recover from quick tragedies, but those things which gnaw at us, wear us down, beat down our courage, strip away our faith. Those things can be fatal to our trust in God. Abraham’s disappointment was just such a trial. God disappointed Abraham for 25 long years. How many of us have ever tried to get pregnant? For the two weeks between supposed conception time and period time, we bite our nails, waiting, waiting waiting. Some of you have struggled with trying to have children for years. Even just a year or two can seem like an eternity when every month you get your hopes up, then are disappointed. You try to get pregnant, then spend two weeks obsessing over and hoping you’re pregnant. Then the disappointment comes, and it takes two weeks to recover and get your hopes up again and then the whole cycle starts again. Hope, disappoint, recover. Imagine this, every month, being disappointed for 25 years. You could figure that’s 300 disappointing months…
Joseph: (Gen. 37, 39-42) God shows him in a dream that his brothers will bow down to him. (I would not advise telling people if God informs you that they will bow down to you. Hear this: Not all prophetic things are meant to be shared!!!) He winds up dumped in a pit (after barely escaping being murdered by them!) then sold as a slave to the Egyptians (v.28), is lied about so that his father thinks that he is dead, is taken into Potipher’s house where he does everything right, then is wrongly accused of trying to rape Potipher’s house, is unjustly incarcerated, then spends time in prison, helps out two of his inmates by interpreting dreams, but then is forgotten by them and left in prison for TWO whole years before Pharoah has a dream that Joseph interprets and is let out of prison. Disappointed. Thwarted Expectations.
Moses: (Exodus) Moses’ heart burns with a desire to deliver his people from the unjust treatment of the Egyptians. Then what? He kills an Egyptian and there’s a warrant out for his head. He winds up tending sheep in the back of the desert for his father in law in. Then God’s promise: Look how it’s worded: (Ex. 3:7-10). From the sounds of it, you might think that this would all happen in one glorious day, or week. But no, it happens through failure, complaining, much death, unbelief. When he first goes back with grand expectations, things only get worse. Pharoah increases the workload and all the people complain and grumble against him. And then they continue to complain and whine against him for more than 40 years. What he expected? Not really. Disappointed. Expectations thwarted.
The children of Israel (Exodus): God is going to deliver them from the Egyptians and the hand of Pharaoh, so after the exhilarating plagues and parting of the Red Sea, then what? Left to wander in the wilderness for forty years while the entire complaining generation is slowly killed off. Manna, endless manna. A wandering circuitous route. Disappointed. Thwarted Expectations.
David: (1 Sam. 16) Samuel the prophet anoints David as king, the Spirit of Lord comes upon Him. Onward King! Right? No. Then what? Saul tries to kill him, over and over and over and over and he spends 10-14 years living in caves in the desert, trying to escape from the hand of Saul. His wife is given to another man. Some of his actions result in the slaughter of 85 priests. At one point the Amalekites invaded and took all his and his men’s wives and children and all that they had. What happened to King of Israel? He is nothing but a homeless man on the run, hated, having lost everything, and still hunted to be killed by Saul. Do you think this was what he expected? No. Disappointed. Expectations thwarted.
The Disciples: God will send a Messiah who will come and save the world. Then Jesus comes, who neither fights nor takes over anything, but is a lowly servant and calls them to a lowly servant life. Then he does the unthinkable and goes and gets himself killed without even putting up a fight-what a tragic end! Imagine this moment. They have left everything. They have left their jobs, some have left their families, possessions, status, everything, to follow his man who claims that He is a king and will be the deliverer of Israel. They obviously figured there was so gain to be had. And then, to end it all, their Savior is dead. It’s all over. No revolution. No overthrowing the Roman government. Nothing. It was all for naught. Disappointment. Expectations thwarted.
As I mentioned before, Jeff and I have had our own little taste of this disappointment, of thwarted expectation.
SAN JOSE STORY (The Road to Santa Clara)
In hindsight, of course, we can see God’s hand in it all, but at the time, it just looked like, we trusted God, we believed we were following Him, and it was one huge disappointment after another.
Now, I realize that we went through a lot of stories without getting to the end. I know. And like I said, we’re on a journey, so Lord willing we will continue to follow our path through tomorrow night.
At this point I’m not even asking you to let go of your expectations, because that’s not something we can do lightly. My goal tonight is that we can come to terms with the fact that we tend to build up expectations of what we think God will or should do. And secondly, that we accept the fact that God will thwart our expectations and deliberately disappoint us.
So, tomorrow morning, or even tonight if you are up for it, during our quiet time, I’m asking you to write a letter to God, or you can write in a list, or whatever form works for you, but I want you to write out the top three things that you’re currently praying about/for (or just dwelling on!). A job, a house, a child, a loved one, a health issue, a desire. Something real, the thing you spend your time thinking about when you lie awake at night. Make a list. And then put next to it what you are expecting. If God were to “answer your prayer” what would that look like? Please try to be honest. The reality of it is the right now we’re praying for a job, and my expectation and hope is that-surprise!-God gives us a job. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to say that. We must be honest with God about this. There are no “right answers”. The right answer is the honest one.
Secondly, please take some time to write down what stick out in your mind as disappointments. You can list them or write about them, just write them down and consider how God has allowed disappointments in your life. We’ll talk more about both of these things tomorrow.
And thirdly (I know I’m giving you a ton of homework), please read through John 11.
As you’re well aware, this exercise is not for God. It’s a way for us to be honest with God and ourselves about our expectations and the ways we’ve been disappointed. Please, please, please hear me in this. This is a process! Don’t try to shortcut to the end because you want to be super spiritual. We have to go through the process. And as we worship, ask God to give you an honest heart, and identify those things He wants to show us. Let’s pray.