Adventures of a Potter's Daughter: Hope That Does Not Disappoint

So one thing that I’ve learned about myself this year is that expectations greatly affect my emotions. This manifests in several different ways. First, if I have no expectations (or low ones), and something turns out to be really great, I get very excited. However, if the opposite is true…if I have high expectations that are not met, I get very upset…I feel frustrated…I blame people….I cry…it’s bad.

This summer, God gave me lots of opportunities to practice responding in a godly fashion to unmet expectations. The first time this happened was in New York City. (Actually, it probably happened several times before that, but you can read about those stories in my previous blogs). On one of our Thursdays off, Chris and I took the bus into the city in hopes of seeing a Broadway show. Our plan was to purchase discounted student tickets for a performance that night by lining up right before the box office opened. However, Les Miserables sold out of Rush tickets just before we got to the front of the line, and despite checking box offices for 5 or 6 different shows after that, we were unable to find tickets for a price that we were willing to pay. Still hopeful, though, we spent the day at High Line Park and then returned to Broadway to sign up for ticket lotteries for Aladdin and Matilda. Having been told that most participants in the lottery the night before had won tickets, we thought our chances were pretty good. But when about 60 other people joined the drawing for just 10 tickets, we realized that we might not be seeing a show after all. And sure enough, about 12 hours after our first attempts at buying tickets, we resigned ourselves to a Broadway-free evening and took the bus back to New Jersey. I tried so hard to be okay with it, to be thankful for the awesome time at the park and in the city and with Chris. But I was so disappointed. And even a little bit mad.

Just a couple weeks later, I set my hopes equally high on something equally uncertain. For some reason, I was completely convinced that if I went to the beach and brought my kite with me, I would have an amazing kite flying experience just like all my sweet childhood memories of flying kites with my dad on the beach. However, there were multiple problems with this fantasy. First, I didn’t really know how to fly the kite. I’d gotten it for Christmas two years before but had never flown it. Second, kite flying is very dependent on wind, which is not always present, even at the beach. And third, kite strings are very easily tangled, especially when there is strong wind.

All of these things I failed to consider when I imagined how awesome it would be to finally fly my brand new kite. But the first time we tried to fly it, the wind was very strong, and I was so excited that I unwound the strings too fast and created a giant knot which Chris later had to spend hours untangling. The second time, there was no wind, and even Chris' super fast backwards running couldn't keep the kite in the air for an expended period of time. And the third time, we realized that we’d lost an important piece of the kite when disassembling it the previous time. In a nutshell, we just couldn't get the kite in the air.

So of course, just like when our Broadway plans fell through, I got frustrated and upset and nearly missed out on enjoying the other amazing beach activities that we got to experience...like body boarding in icy water without freezing to death (thank you Jesus for wetsuits) and watching the sunrise from the lifeguard's chair.

Thankfully, my time at IHOP:EG really changed my perspective and hopefully the way I'll react to scenarios like these in the future. Because this is a spiritual matter as well. Sometimes I have expectations for God. And like anything else, these expectations are not always met. For example, I used to think that, when I was faithful to pray and read my Bible, God was obligated to speak to me and make me feel close to Him. However, this is really a false sense of entitlement. Even if I lay down everything I have for Jesus, He owes me nothing. What I actually deserve is death and separation from God, and anything beyond that is His mercy. This summer, I began to see that, instead of accusing Jesus for being distant or ignoring my prayers, I should be grateful for His love and kindness. And even if He never gives me anything in this earthly life, He is still God, and He is still good.

Of course, I don't think this means that I should set my expectations super low and stop hoping for blessings. I still want to experience fun things and feel close to God. But every hope that I have has to be put into perspective. Because my ultimate hope is not in this life, but in the age to come, and that hope will never disappoint (see Rom 5:5). When I get to reign on a restored earth with Jesus FOREVER, I'm pretty sure I won't care that I missed out on a Broadway show or flying my kite. So instead of putting my hope and expectations in this life, I'm learning to wait for Jesus. He is our blessed hope ( Titus 2:13).