When Reality and Expectations Don't Meet

December 30, 2008

WHEN REALITY AND EXPECTATIONS DON’T MEET

Disappointments keep on coming. The usual response is “why?” It can mask itself as an honest question but a check of heart might reveal a complaint. We can ask but we should not whine. God is God and we are but human. Maybe God is teaching us patience or a change in attitude. But the question still remains unanswered. When reality does not meet with our expectations, we often get dismayed. But our disappointments should not lead us to discouragement. Remember Habakkuk’s declaration on Habakkuk 3:17-19 (ESV):

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

He makes my feet like the deer’s;

He makes me tread on my high places.

We have here a man with the right character who made a right response. It is never easy to hold to your bearing in pressing situations but a mature heart and mind can endure. And this is only through God’s grace that we are being changed from glory to glory. Let the joy of the Lord be our strength.

Romans 5:3-5 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.