Have you ever had expectations for the future and then experienced a strong sense of disappointment when it didn’t happen as you imagined it should have?
Of course you have — it’s a part of human nature to “write the novel” of our futures. We imagine what will happen next week, next month, next year, after graduation; we think about what life will be like when we get the new job, when he finally proposes, when we have the kids, when the kids grow up, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Right? Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this! We dream, we plan, we look forward to all the wonderful things that life has waiting for us just beyond the horizon of tomorrow.
And yet we know that these expectations we often set for ourselves — and for others — aren’t necessarily realistic: we are sometimes overly optimistic about these unspoken plans and then we fall apart internally over the disappointment of it all when they don’t turn out juuuuuust exactly so. Perhaps the new job wasn’t as grand as what it seemed it would be; maybe the big conference you had hoped to meet a future spouse only brought heartache and instead of meeting a guy you argued with your best friend; perhaps the grandiose holiday meal you planned for your family turned into the long-standing family joke that gets replayed at every family function afterwards.
It hurts, those failed expectations. The failed expectations turn into disappointments, they turn into painful reminders of past hopes and dreams. Believe me, darling, I know this feeling. So today I want to leave you with some encouragement for your disappointed heart from Psalm 62:
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.{Psalm 62:1-2 & 5-8, KJV}
In other words, darling girl, trust in God. Above all things. HE is your salvation and that is a realistic expectation — that is Truth. God is your defense, the One who loves you more than anything. Don’t lose your hope, continue to expect joy: but expect it to come from Jesus, not earthly possessions, treasures, or other humans. Give Him your heart and allow Him to love you; allow your heart to delight in Him and He will bless you — you will experience love, forgiveness, salvation, and joy beyond what the world can offer you, beyond what you could imagine, beyond what you could plan, beyond what you could ever expect.
You see, when your expectations are based on what the world can offer you or dependent upon another human being, after a series of disappointments, we lose hope. We lose faith in dreaming and planning and expecting beautiful things to come our way. Bitterness begins to move into your heart where expectation once lived. Jaded vision takes the place of clarity and hurt mars the joy of life’s simplicity.
You can choose to see life through disappointment or through the lens of potential. Focusing on disappointments makes us miss out on the potential and it traps us into being limited to what we can see in the past.
But have you ever stopped to think that maybe disappointments come to make your faith in God stronger? If you never hurt, you would never know that God truly is a healer. If you never experienced sadness, you would never know how deep the joy of Christ is. If you only ever had laughter, you would never know the comfort of God’s love.
Don’t allow the disappointments of your life to stop you from dreaming, expecting, or planning.
Dream in spite of the disappointment, because it will be much more vivid the second time around. Expect beautiful things in spite of disappointments, because the smaller things in life will become more meaningful than the grandiose plans of your original expectation. Plan for the future, but don’t be limited to what you can only see in the moment. Your expectations will never be fulfilled in perfect like what you imagine in the unwritten novel of your heart: but remember that there is beauty in imperfection.
Your expectation of hope is from God: so keep expecting Him to be the God He promises to be for you.