What I Expect

When I plug in my hairdryer, I expect it to blow hot air.

When I click send on the button in Outlook, I expect the email to be delivered to my friend.

When I press mute on my remote control, I expect the tv sound to stop.

When I attempt to work for God, I expect Him to use that effort in a way I've already figured out.

Technology has trained me, or maybe spoiled me, to expect life to go as I want. When something stops working around the house I am the first to freak out, panic, and believe that my life is put on hold until its fixed. That's just if the vacuum starts to make a funny noise. It doesn't take a lot to go wrong for me to get anxious and I often stay uptight until the potentially broken item is back to working as it should. After all, things should just work, right?

Maybe in a pre-fallen world life would go like that, just as we expect at the time that we think is best. But as I have learned again and again over the past year, this world is broken. Not only do computers freeze and batteries run out, but non-technological things break too. People get sick when they shouldn't, babies die, and bosses change their minds about plans that we count on.

We take a chance for God and those efforts can sometimes seem failed.

Through studying Moses' life I've recently seen how he had such a experience with his attempts to work for God without getting the results he expected. He heard from a burning bush to do something. He obeyed that bush, and life got worse! This was not what was supposed to happen so Moses ran back to God in a panic, saying that God had not fulfilled His promise of rescue at all! The deliverance didn't happen as Moses thought it should and He lost sight of God's character, that He is I AM who needs no other name.

God has not responded as I expected this year. Some things I've attempted for Him have not worked out as I think they should. When my plans are so logical, I wonder why they don't happen as I would like.

I've come to terms with knowing that technology - which is supposed to be robotic and happen the same way every time - does not always work like I want. As much as I don't like it, I've come to a place of accepting this.

But yet I still haven't fully come to peace with this in the spiritual sense. I'm still fighting to understand that God, who is the infinite opposite of robotic, does not work life out as I expect. I have learned to accept technological problems in stride, but continue to have such trouble when God does not act as I expect, and I wonder why.