God Over Good By Luke NorsworthySample

Day Two: Great Expectations 

Can we prove that God is truly a loving Father while suffering is rampant in God’s created world? Can we prove that God exists without any doubt? Can we prove that any of it is true? The answer for me is no. I can’t prove it. I’ve never been able to build the wall high enough and pack it tightly enough to keep my questions on the outside. And now the water has knocked down the wall and dragged me out to sea, and I’m drowning in the unknown. 

Their first night home after their honeymoon, Paul set his alarm clock, turned off the lamp, fell onto the pillow, and said to his wife of six days, Rachel, “I’ve got to leave for work at six, so can you have breakfast ready by 5:45?” 

“Excuse me?” Rachel said. 

“5:45. I think that should be enough time for me to eat before I have to leave.” 

“What do you mean ‘have breakfast ready’?” 

“Well, my mom used to make me breakfast every morning: eggs, sausage, and homemade biscuits. So I figured you would too.” 

“I’m not your mom.” 

Paul is somehow still married, and now he’s the one who cooks breakfast on our ski trips, because over the last six years, he’s learned how to eat breakfast without his mother. Who said miracles don’t happen? 

As the saying goes, expectations are nothing more than premeditated resentments. If you expect your spouse to make you breakfast every morning without discussing it beforehand, you are planning for resentment. Unrealistic and unexpressed expectations can destroy a relationship with a spouse or with God. Expectations accumulate like stains on a white couch, appearing without our knowing from where they originated. We clothe God with expectations derived from our daddy issues, Greek mythology, or the latest Morgan Freeman movie, because we all know that Morgan Freeman’s voice is actually God’s voice. 

Our brains prefer the ease of accumulation instead of the struggle of creation out of nothing, so everything we see and experience shapes our understanding of God, whether we want those experiences to influence our understanding of God or not. 

For example, those obsessed with control often develop an expectation for God to be a micromanaging deity. Those averse to judgment expect God never to step on anyone’s toes. We deify what we value.

How have you made God fit into your expectations?