Unmet Expectations: Reflections on Prayer and Hope and a God Who Doesn't Do What We Want

In a recent sermon, my pastor asked the question, “What do you expect when you pray?” 

It’s a good question to ask. Most of the time, if I’m honest, I don’t expect a whole lot–or I just don’t expect nearly as much as God ends up doing.

The text for that sermon was Acts 12, the story of when Peter was freed from jail and showed up at the door of praying believers. A servant girl, Rhoda, answered the door. She was so stunned that she left Peter at the door, ran back inside, and he just stood there, still knocking. I can imagine the smile on his face, the knowing shake of his head. He was probably in disbelief still, too. Even while he had walked out of that jail cell, he had thought it was a vision. 

No one expected God to do what he did–miraculously free Peter from prison. Yet God blew their expectations out of the water. 

Maybe you have a story like that, a time when you can look at what God did and say with confidence, “He did far more than I ever expected.” I hope you have a few stories like that, and I hope you tell them often. 

But what about the other stories? What about the stories where we pray in anguish on our knees, begging God, even expecting God to do something…and he doesn’t? Or at least it seems like he doesn’t? You pray and you pray and you pray, filled with expectation that God will lead, guide, deliver, heal, save…and you’re met with silence.

What do you do with a God who doesn’t seem to live up to your expectations?

I have been praying alongside a friend for something, and God doesn’t seem to be doing a darned thing. I’m not going to lie–I’m pretty upset with him about it. I know he can do something; he’s shown that to me over and over again. But he won’t–or at least he won’t do the thing my friend and I want him to do. In this one area, he hasn’t met our expectations, not even a little bit. And that ticks me off.

I’m not the only one who’s gotten more than a little bit upset that God hasn’t done what we want. Habakkuk expected God to help, crying out, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (1:1). The psalmist, Asaph, went to far as to question God’s character saying, “Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” (Psalm 77:9). Jesus’ followers expected a Messiah, and yet they wept as he was led to his bloody death (Luke 23:27).

Sometimes, I find myself fighting cynicism and discouragement when I consider what I expect of God. After praying the same things for a very long time, I struggle to keep my expectations high. My prayers can easily grow weak, unbelief poking holes in the fabric of my faith until all I have to offer God is a tattered and worn rag.

But maybe some days, that’s enough. Maybe that threadbare faith can be an honest offering to a God I’m sometimes mad at, a God I don’t understand, a God who doesn’t always do what I want, a God who certainly doesn’t do what I expect. 

I need to raise my expectations of God. I know this. I’m far too cynical and far too “realistic” to trust that God can do things like he did for Peter in Acts 12. I want to pray boldly and believe fervently. I want to expect God to do what only he can do.

Yet there are seasons when I do wait with hopeful expectation. There are times I feel full of faith and pray with eager longing, excited to see him work. And then sometimes, those expectations, those prayers, seem to go unanswered. Or worse, unnoticed.

Andrew Peterson wrote in his song, “The Silence of God”:

It's enough to drive a man crazy
Or break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder
If he's ever been sane
When he's bleeding for comfort
From thy staff and thy rod
And the heavens' only answer
Is the silence of God…

It is a unique and devastating pain to expect God to move and hear silence instead. 

You may know that pain well, and maybe that pain has fueled your prayers. Or maybe it has nearly extinguished them. But here is what I know: We have a God we can expect much of. He is a God we can pray to and wait for with childlike faith that he will do something. 

But we also have a God who will never, ever, ever line up exactly with our expectations. And we need to think long and hard about our true expectations of God and what we want out of the Creator of the universe. We need to look back at Scripture and see what his people expected of him and notice what they got instead. If we do this, I think we’ll realize pretty quickly that God’s failure to line up with what we long for may in fact be a severe mercy and a surprising grace.

After all, if God did what we expected, Jesus would still be in the grave.

I don’t know if your heart is heavy with unmet expectations or if your soul feels full with anticipation. Either way, consider the words of Lamentations 3:16-24:

He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
    and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished;
    so has my hope from the Lord.”
Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
    the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
    and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Thanks be to God.