James Duff October 16th 2016 ~ Expectations

It’s good to be back from holidays and at church on a Sunday for the first time in five weeks!  Two of those Sundays saw us ministering in different places, while the other three we spent on holidays.  We went to Albany visiting my sister and her family, spent some time at home and had a wonderful week in Broome.Broome is an extraordinary place. Some people love it but, before I left, others had warned me that it is overrated and not worth all the tourism hype.  I can understand the warning that people gave.  If your expectations of Broome are of rainforests, green hills, manicured lawns and mid 20s temperature, then you will be disappointed.  If you expect it to be a place where the harsh desert meets the aqua Indian Ocean, a place that has a difficult history and difficult current social welfare issues, a coastline that is breathtaking and temperatures in the mid 30s, then you will love it, just as we did.Our expectations of people, places and situations play a huge role in how we view reality.  I think our expectations of God play an even bigger role in how we relate to Him and see reality.  Many of us have been deeply disappointed with God because our expectations have not been met and we have  therefore lowered our expectations of Him.  Some of us have expectations of God that see him as our personal genie.  Others of us expect God to turn a blind eye to our sin and we keep on living outside of his good realm for us.  Others of us expect Him to right all of the injustice in the world now and we are frustrated with Him because He hasn’t.  There are understandable but misguided expectations we can have of God and, therefore, a misguided view of reality.Our expectations of God are based on our knowledge of Him.  Knowing God can be a very difficult thing to grasp. J.I.Packer in his famous book Knowing God writes, “It is clear to start with that ‘knowing’ God is of necessity a more complex business than ‘knowing’ another person, just as knowing my neighbour is a more complex business than ‘knowing’ a house, or a book, or a language. The more complex the object, the more complex is the knowing of it.”How can we grow to know God and develop clearer expectations of Him, of who He is and therefore of reality?While away, I felt challenged to read through Mark’s gospel three times - to take a chunk of time each week, not just a few short minutes each day, to saturate myself in Jesus.  I took the challenge so I would grow in Him, in my expectations of Him and of myself.  I was struck again by the life of Jesus, a perfect life that He lay down for us.As I saturate myself further in the life of Jesus, I see more and more the wonder of his sacrifice and His love for us.  I recommend taking a chunk of time to read the gospels, to grow in knowing God and to have your expectations of Him, of yourselves and the world shattered as you realise, like I continually do, the amazing love of Jesus for us and this rebellious world.BlessingsJames