By Ife J. Ibitayo
The actor Ryan Reynolds once said, “When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.” Reynolds is not exactly the greatest sage of our generation, but his viewpoint carries strong resonance for many, especially millennials. We millennials are the perennial pimple-faced freshmen of our era, the hormonal, awkward teenagers who never really grew up. We just transferred our angst from classrooms to boardrooms and home offices. We are jaded about politics, jaded about the economy, and jaded about God.
Dashed Expectations
Irish theologian Alister McGrath wrote that, “For many Christians, an experience of God lies at the heart of the religious dynamic. This experience may subsequently lead to theological formulations…yet these formulations are ultimately secondary to the experience that precipitated and shaped them.” In other words, our thoughts of God often stem from our experience of God, not the other way around. And one of the prevailing sentiments of God today is disappointment.
God allowed our nation to experience one of the greatest recessions in American history. He stood by as COVID-19 snuffed out 6 million precious lives. And He did nothing as Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. Many would rather live in a world without God than a God who would allow such tragedies as these.
These past several years, I’ve struggled with disappointment with God as well. I was disappointed with college, grad school, my first job, and my first love interest. I’ve spent months working myself into frenzied excitement about a promise I believed I’d received from the big man upstairs only to have my foundation collapse. I wake up lying on the cold floor surrounded by my dashed expectations and shattered dreams. I’ve spent many nights crying out to a God who is inconveniently silent when I need to hear from Him the most.
Great Expectations
In the midst of my dejection, I stumbled upon a book by one of my favorite author’s called Disappointment with God. In it, Philip Yancey wrote, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” In the middle of a rainstorm, it may feel like the sun will never shine again, but we know it will—it must—because the sun is reliable. Similarly, God is trustworthy. The weeping prophet Jeremiah once said, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). God is more dependable than the sun, and every new day we rise to affirms this truth.
Conclusion
We may be going through a disappointing season right now, and greater disappointments surely lay ahead. But we must not forget in the darkness what we proclaimed in the light. The LORD is not a disappointing God but a great one. And a great God demands great expectations.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
(1 Corinthians 2:9)