Well, we're back for another podcast and we're just a few days away from Christmas. And if there's ever a time in our lives on an annual basis where expectations often fall short and end up in disappointment. I think it's Christmas and the gift giving that we do with people.
Is that your subtle way of saying you're not getting me anything this year?
probably. Yeah.
Oh wow. Please send your gifts. No, I'm kidding.
Yeah. I was thinking more of you know as our girls grew up and you're trying to find the right gift. And it's true even now with our grandkids, you're trying to find the right thing. that they'll go, "Oh, wow. This is great." And the big smile on their face and you miss the mark
and disappointment is what you see on their faces.
Oh, I remember with our own kids, we put together this kitchen and there was like 26 pages of instructions with we had to have a friend help you do it.
Let me back up. We put together this kitchen.
Okay. You put together the kitchen. I believe that I was maybe with child then or not.
I don't know.
Anyway, we put together. Our daughter comes out, "Merry Christmas." And she just stares at it and doesn't say anything.
I don't know if she was expecting a full-blown full-size kitchen or what, but it was one of the times where expectations aren't met and it ends up in disappointment.
How about the time for our grandkids? This is an all-time favorite, where I thought one of our grandkids was really interested in the world and maps and all that stuff. So that Christmas, I got you and I got all the grandkids what are those gun things called? The Nerf gun.
Nerf guns. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, but Nerf gun.
Everyone but her because I thought she would really like a globe,
right?
And so everyone opens up their Nerf guns and she opens up her globe. She looks at it, looks at her mother, leaves the room, and is sobbing in our bedroom. Sobbing. I mean, talk about missing the mark.
Yeah. And so we do we build up expectations of what someone or how someone's going to respond to us and those expectations aren't met and it ends up in disappointment. And a lot of times it has to do with events we celebrate. I'll never forget thinking I just nailed it the first Christmas we were married and I got you a wooden dish drain to dry dishes on because I had heard you say that was something you wanted and that was one of my Christmas gifts, not the only one.
I think it was the biggest one that you Yeah. And while we can all talk about that, and we're hoping that as you're listening to this, you're thinking about your own life and times that expectations weren't met by another person and the disappointment that came. But the other side of this is there are times we have expectations of God
and those expectations aren't met in the disappointment. And one of the biblical narrative stories that I think sums it up so well is the story of Lazarus and Mary and Martha when Lazarus gets ill and the sisters. Now again, this is a close family relationship that Jesus spent a lot of time in their home. And it was the expectation that when they sent for Jesus and said, "Our brother Lazarus is ill. You need to come." That he would come right away. And he didn't. And Martha in John 11 says this to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
Wait a minute. You got to go a little further back because the message came. So, the sister sent a message to Jesus and said, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."
Yeah. Yeah.
And so, you know, when you put that together and you know that Jesus has the power to do things, they've seen that in other situations where he's healed people and this time they go, "The one you love." So, there obvious is this close rel relationship to Lazarus. Their expectation is that he would drop everything and come running and he didn't and Lazarus dies,
right?
And the disappointment that is there from them is you know you can sense put yourself in that scene and you can feel the disappointment maybe even anger that expectations weren't met. But Jesus understood there was something bigger going on and there was something greater that was at stake than just Lazarus. And then when he says your brother will rise again, they automatically think about the resurrection at the end of time. And Jesus says, "No." I'm going to do something. And he says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, he will live. And everyone who lives, though he believes in me, will never die." Do you believe this?
and again, that's back to that issue of trust.
It makes me also think about the accounting of John the Baptist when he was incarcerated and his disciples. He sent his discip his disciples to go see Jesus to see if he was the Messiah,
right?
And so they go and they tell him that John the Baptist is incarcerated. And in my mind, I would think Jesus would have gotten an Uber and gone straight to that jail and done his thing and gotten John out of there. that's not what happens.
No. And I think there are countless illustrations of that I go in Jesus life and I think it's in Luke's gospel where Jesus says to Peter, Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. And what I want to hear Jesus say at that point is but I told him he can't.
Yeah.
And but what Jesus says is basically I'm going to let him do that and I'll pray for you that when you've come through that you'll strengthen your brothers. And that's when I go okay God this is confusing because these are people you love and yet you're not fulfilling their expectations and it leaves them, I think, with the choice of either to trust you or to be disappointed.
And I bet that as you're listening to this, you are hoping that there's going to be some point in this podcast where Jimmy and I are going to give you five steps, three steps, even a step to figuring out why God does what he does. And the problem with that is in our fin night minds. We try to figure out manage an infinite God and we see everything from street level where we're at and we don't understand the my favorite word of mine the meta narrative or as Larry Krab says used to say to us the larger story
right and that as you mentioned Larry's name Larry now understands fully because he's in heaven but one of the books he wrote towards the end of his life was when God's ways make no sense.
it's a great book. It's an unbelievable title because I think so often that's what we run up against that his ways don't make any sense. And therefore what comes into play is the expectations that we have of a good God. And he is a good God, of a loving God. And he is a loving God. But we put our own spin. Usually what that means to us is you'll give me what I want God.
And I have I mean I've lived a lot of life. That doesn't mean I'm even close to being fully knowledgeable at all. But I find that if I'm in the Bible and I'm finding out who he is, it's not that it takes away the sting of the struggle or the death or the loss or the confusion over accidents that happen that you think, "How in the world, God, why didn't you stop this?" But what happens is I begin to know him and his character. And by faith which he gives me and grows in me. I can then say I trust you not in a blind way. Although faith is feels like it's blind but faith my faith is in something solid. I read his word. I read about him and I'm grounded in who he is not in the circumstances.
Yeah. And it's not the amount of faith I have. It's the object of my faith which is Christ.
Yeah.
He is the object of my faith. And that's why it gives me the ability. And the other thing that I'm continually learning is it's not a one-time thing. Like you don't get it and go, "Okay, now I understand it." I think it has to be replayed out and lived out in my life on an everyday basis. Something could happen today, you know, just a few days before Christmas that could rock my world. And I'm going to have to come back to that same point of all right, I had an expectation that wasn't met, and God, am I going to be completely disappointed in you or am I going to put my trust in you? And that's an ongoing lesson that has to be seen and lived out and learned over and over again as we walk this world in our relationship with Christ.
I don't know about you, babe. but I can tell you that just sitting here right now, I feel a deep conviction in my heart and a deep stirring of trusting him in a way That is far deeper than what I trusted him for even an hour ago.
Yeah. And that's the part that to me is I hope something that I'm learning and we all continue to learn is that it's a neverending process. Neverending process of getting to know God deeper, getting to know Christ deeper and leaning into what I know about him. to give me the ability to trust him when expect s aren't met. and again, like we said, we're just a couple days away from people opening up gifts from one another. And you know, my I would love to believe that every gift you got for somebody has met expectations, but the probability is it won't. And as you work through the disappointment of those things on a human level, draw into the reality that you have to work through those same disappointments at times in your relationship with God. And Mary and Martha had to do that with Lazarus death. And Jesus response was, "Do you believe? Do you believe? I'm the resurrection and I am the life. Do you believe?" And that is the bottom line for us as we think about when our expectations of what God will do are not met by him.
So we invite you in this season of Advent and expectation of Jesus return that you would struggle well.
Absolutely. And we trust that you have a wonderful Christmas.