EXPECTATIONS, HOPES, AND REALITY

 

 

When our expectations are realistic, they can enable us to endure. We will even lay on a surgical table, surrounded by masked men, if we are convinced that surgery is necessary to remove a tumor.

 

This same principle pertains to life. We can endure its hardships if we are convinced that they have a good purpose and outcome:

 

·       It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7–11 (ESV)

 

When we place ourselves into the hands of God, we hope in the Master Surgeon who guarantees His surgery as no one else can. However, we tend to also place our hopes and expectations in less trustworthy surgeons. In Worry, Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell writes:

 

·       The sum of our meaningful connections [to people and groups] is…the key to emotional health and the surest protection we have against the psychological ravages of worry.” (26)

 

“Meaningful connections” are a big plus.  However, they must not become our “surest protection.” Depending on others to such an extent is to place undo pressure on them to fulfill our needs and leads to disappointment:

 

·       Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; (Psalm 146:3–7)

 

Ultimately, our hope must be invested in the only One who can provide for us, the One who is working everything out for our good (Romans 8:28). Nor can we trust in ourselves. In Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon wrote about his struggles with depression, but was discouraged about the hope he offers – “a sense of humor”:

 

·       Of course, it can be hard to sustain a sense of humor during an experience that is really not so funny. It is urgently necessary to do so…Whatever time is eaten by a depression is gone forever. The minutes that are ticking by as you experience the illness are minutes that you will not know again. No matter how bad you feel you have to do everything you can to keep living, even if all you can do for the moment is breathe. Wait it out and occupy the time of waiting as fully as you can. That’s my big piece of advice to depressed people.

 

Solomon’s advice should make Christians grateful that we have a real and living hope, even it might take time for this glorious expectation to infiltrate through the thick walls of our heart. It took Moses time to re-embrace his prior hope of leading his people out of Egypt, even when he had a face-to-Face with the Author of all hope through a mysterious burning bush.

 

God had told him to return to Egypt, from where he had fled in terror 40 years earlier, to lead His people into freedom from slavery. However, even though Moses had become a lowly shepherd and had little to lose, he vigorously resisted God, claiming that he couldn’t accomplish this task since he was a stutterer:

 

·       The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? (Exodus 4:11)

 

If God is for us, nothing and no one can come against us:

 

·       If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Romans 8:31–34)

 

 It doesn’t matter what our weaknesses, failures, inadequacies, and infirmities might be. Instead, He delights in using the weakest and most broken of us:

 

·       The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18–19)

 

If God is our hope, let us rejoice and praise Him, even when it seems that every chord of praise needs retuned.