Marital Conflicts
The issue of expectations is so often what causes the initial offense in our lives. Psalm 62:5 says, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” The important principle we see here is that our expectations must only be from God. To put expectations on God or anyone else is going to turn out badly. The scriptures here do not say my expectation is in or on God but from Him. When God says “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved”, you can have a firm expectation that if you call on Him you will be saved. That is a real expectation from God. To say that I will never have a problem in my life because I expect God to keep me from troubles is not a real expectation from God, it is something you might impose as an expectation but God is not bound to it. The problem that we so often have is not just in our expectations concerning God but in the fact that instead of only waiting on God we put our expectations in people. When we do that we put ourselves in a position that we are going to have our expectations broken.
Jeremiah 17:5-8 gives us a contrast between those who put their expectations in men and those who get them only from God. “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”
Notice the difference between these two groups. There is a curse on those who put their trust in men, that curse is that their expectations are going to be broken. People are feeble and fail, they cannot live up to our expectations because they are sinners. When we put our expectation and trust in people we often find ourselves just as Jeremiah describes, like a heath in the desert, unable to see good things, where there is no provision and help. The reason is because putting our trust in people necessarily means that we must remove our trust from God. Those who put their trust in the LORD alone are blessed, they have a promise of provision and nourishment. The person who puts their trust in the LORD will be fruitful.
