High Price, High Hopes
There are a host of reasons why a buyer in an overheated market may buy an already highly valued car, say, an air-cooled, long-hood Porsche 911 with its iconic flat-six. Maybe they hope it will appreciate even further, and net them a hundred thousand dollars or more one day. Or maybe the hype feeds on itself and makes the car that much more desirable to a person – maybe it seems like the experience of owning it really could be worth a quarter million dollars or more. For whatever reason, a person making the purchase will, at some point, think, “Well, for that price, it better… [fill in the blank].”
This feeling started out as hope, which is beautiful and admirable until it becomes expectation. When the object of a person’s dreams and desires must now bear some new burden, bitterness and resentment have already arrived.
These are the same expectations that people put on God. It takes many forms, with the underlying assumption being an investment paid into God or a godly life should be followed by an expectation of something good or beneficial.
If I give up a certain sin, it better feel good.
If I don’t cheat on my taxes, my business better succeed.
If I’m a devout Christian but I’m nice to people, they better not despise my beliefs as outdated or dogmatic.
If I bring my kids to church, they better not get involved with drugs.
If I ask God to help my unbelief, he better reveal himself to me.
If I read my Bible, I better get a specific answer to the specific problem I’m going through.
Just like buying a valuable car and then inventing an expectation it’s now supposed to meet, it’s easy to take a step forward toward God and imagine that He now owes something or is expected to do something. If this has ever described you, these thoughts have crept into your head because of two problematic implications: the implied investment, and the implied expectation.
Let’s start with the investment. What do you feel like you have invested in your walk with God? What has it cost you? What sacrifices do you make? After considering those, can you think of expectations you have of God? Does it seem like He owes you something? Do you expect His will to line up with yours? Or, do you expect Him to fulfill His will in a way that will benefit you?
The Bible is full of people making wild expectations of God based on wildly imaginative investments they think they have made to Him. Before the birth of Jesus, the Israelites felt that God ought to redeem them from their woes and get on with that whole “make you a great nation” thing he promised – now. As some of Jesus’ first disciples, James and John thought they could ask whatever they wanted of Jesus. In fact, their actual words were, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.” (Mark 10:35)
Hope is good. Hoping for something, whether to win a soccer game or for your child to be healed from cancer, is something God asks of us. Expecting something, though, is quite different. To keep it in perspective, remember that our only investment into our salvation is merely our “act” of receiving the gifts of mercy and grace that God gives to us – if you can even call that an act. As long as we keep making expectations of God, we can expect to need that grace every day.
