Managing Expectations
What do you expect from God? Do you think that if you obey God’s directives in your life that you will live a struggle free life? There are a lot of times when we read the Bible, we pray, extend our faith, trust God and hope that our efforts and obedience to God will facilitate a life of greater ease and less struggle. And no doubt, we can find lots of scenarios in the Bible that could affirm this transactional mentality. In the Bible, we can find a plethora of verses which confirm, “If I do everything right, according to godly principles, then my life will be smooth, prosperous and devoid of hardship.”
I have often put a boatload of faith in such verses and navigated my life to conform to this kind of transactional mentality. Maybe you have subconsciously thought, like me, “God, I’ll organize my life to conform to Your commandments and I expect that my life will go smoothly as a result of my compliance or obedience.” Throughout Christian history, this is a really common mentality.
I’d like to throw a monkey wrench in this type of thinking, based on what I have recently read in Genesis 12 and Abram’s obedience to God’s directives to him.
At the beginning of Genesis 12, we read: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”
In response the God’s directives, Abram obeyed and settled into the land to which God directed him, based on Genesis 12:7 which says, “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So he [Abram] built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.”
I’m bringing this to your attention because even though Abram obeyed God’s directives to him about moving to a new land, everything didn’t turn out smoothy groovy for Abram. To this end, in Genesis 12:10 we read, “Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.”
It’s clear that Abram followed God’s instructions, but it’s also clear that even though Abram obeyed God, he still experienced famine so much that he moved to Egypt.
It’s important for us to be obedient to God’s directives in our lives, but let’s be careful to manage our expectations when we’re obedient to God. Just because we follow all of God’s instructions doesn’t mean that we will live a life of ease and free from adversity. Even more importantly, let’s be careful that we don’t stake our obedience and relationship with God to be contingent on comfortable results. Let’s be devoted to walking with God and staying deeply connected even when we go through famine experiences and difficult seasons.