Unfulfilled Expectations

One of the main causes for breakdowns in relationships is unfulfilled expectations; times in relationships where one person or the other has their dreams, hopes, and or expectations dashed because their “significant other” fails them. It happens daily in marriages. When a wife doesn’t live up to everything her husband dreamed of, or if she changes from the ‘model’ he married to something more like “Carolyn ‘Ma’ Ingles”. Or when the daring, adventurous, mans’ man that she married carries those traits into the marriage, what once drew her to him now is viewed as irresponsibility and non-caring and putting her behind all others. Unmet expectations can kill a relationship.

This doesn’t only happen in human relationships. This is true with many of us in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Just as many marriages had their best times together during the dating years and on the honeymoon and the few months after, many of us have never recaptured the ecstasy of the first days of our new-found faith. Why? Because of expectations, which in both case, were unrealistic. We are selfish by nature and if we don’t get our way then we feel like it’s over. God has disappointed you and so, although you still have salvation, you have no relationship. Just as many couples are still married, but have no life together.

The health and strength in any relationship, including ours with Father God, is based on faith and trust. Do you only trust what you see, or in what he says?

Habakkuk had many reasons to question God, however, in his journey we see God take Habakkuk from asking, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But You do not listen?” and hearing God’s response, “…Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it!” (Habakkuk 1:2-5), witnessing Habakkuk’s faith in that relationship taking him from despair to being able to say with confidence,

“Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He will make me as sure-footed as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains.”

(Habakkuk 3:17-19)

What are you expecting from God? Have you failed to relate to Him because He’s seemingly not meeting your expectations? Remember, as the song says, “when you don’t understand, when you can’t see His plan, when you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.” And we know His heart from knowing His Word. And His Word proclaims His faithfulness.

Why trust Him? Because He is worthy!