Session 5

What to do when God doesn’t meet your expectations

From Exodus: A 34-Day Devotional

You can’t seem to please anyone — your boss, your spouse, your parents. Maybe you’ve been rejected, made to feel like an outsider because of your obedience to God. You’ve been doing everything right. You’re reading your Bible, going to church, praying. You expected God to give you more than He has right now. Your circumstances stink. Your expectations haven’t been met, and in the space between what you expected and reality, you’ve grown disappointed. 

It’s easy to shake your fist at God and ask, “Why?” But complaining and turning away from God does not remove the disappointment. Instead the despair deepens. 

Consider for a second this possibility: That God’s plans for you are greater than the greatest plans you could ever make for yourself.

In Exodus 5, the Hebrews’ lives were made harder when Moses and Aaron obediently went to Pharaoh and requested the Hebrews be let go to hold a festival honoring God in the desert. Pharaoh, not knowing God and thus unable to understand obedience to Him, not only denied the request, but made the Hebrew plight much worse. Under the circumstances, the Hebrews turned on Moses and Aaron rather than trusting God had greater plans for them. 

God is at work in all of our circumstances, even the painful ones, and He wants more for us than we could ever want or imagine for ourselves. So what if we stopped asking why, and instead asked,“What can I learn in the midst of this?” Neither question changes our circumstances, but the second changes us. It shifts our attitude from victim to victor. It turns our eyes from the earthly to the eternal, and allows what was meant to harm us to help us. 

Reflect:

• Is there an area of your life where you’re deeply disappointed, suffering or feeling like you just can’t win? What’s one area of your life where you just want to ask, “Why?”
• How does your perspective on that situation change when stop focusing on why and start asking, “What can I learn?”
• God can work through our pain to show us things about ourselves and about Himself. What’s one thing you want to learn about God in this situation? What’s one thing He might be teaching you about yourself?