“I didn’t get the job I deserved.”
“I didn’t get the car I wanted.”
“I didn’t get the marriage I prayed for.”
“And I have been an honest person - law-abiding and God-fearing – yet few of the things I wanted out of life have come my way.”
“Why, God, don’t you do what you’re supposed to do?”

After all, what God is ‘supposed to do’ probably dominates our reasonings more than we suspect. Most of us live with an unspoken quid pro quo that if we live decent lives God acts decently toward us. God takes care of the poor and ailing, provides awesome sunsets on starless nights and keeps my family and me relatively safe and healthy because that’s just how God deals with good folk like me.

However, every once in a while, usually in the most painful times of our lives, our idea that God’s ways are limited to our expectations, simply blows up in our faces. An earthquake, a recession, an untimely death – these are just a few of the things that can turn our theologies into skeletons and leave us vacant and vulnerable.

When these things happen our first reaction is usually anger. I remember when a relative was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Many in our family were mad. Maybe it was simply anger at the circumstances, but it certainly bled over into our understanding of God. Some of us stopped praying and stopped going to church. We were simply unable to face God until God ‘fixed it.’

Thankfully, God did fix it, and we all returned to our normal routines. But not before taking a deeper look at the roots of our anger, trying to understand why God acting outside of our predetermined frameworks, could make us so upset.

Of course, we’re not the first ones to feel this way. In this weekend’s Gospel reading we will hear fierce anger directed at Jesus by his hometown friends when they discovered that he wasn’t the Messiah they thought he should be. Their anger nearly turned deadly had Jesus allowed it.

And so we ask: How has God defied our expectations? Are we angry about it? Should we be? The secret to living a peaceful life is resisting the urge to put our expectations on the Lord and being open to what each new day and discovery might bring.

Reading
Missional Renaissance – Reggie McNeal
Advanced Strategic Planning – Aubrey Malphurs
Peter Gomes - Sermons