Expectations and Looking for God
“Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them – not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.” - Hosea 1:7
Expectations. We wear them around like corrective lenses. Only, these lenses do not always help us see more clearly. Expectations, when inaccurate, can distort. They can manipulate and confuse.
In the 8th century when the book of Hosea was penned, Israel was struggling through a very turbulent time. They had gone through six different kings in 20 years, four of whom were assassinated and two of whom were forcibly removed. They expected the Lord to come, but they also confused His character with the pagan god of the Canaanites. This is one factor that caused their expectations to be all wrong.
The Lord spoke through Hosea to realign the Israelites expectations. Throughout the book, He tells them what they should expect, weighing their lack of love and their faithlessness in His righteous hands. It’s a harrowing list that includes: rebuke, ruin, walls, drought, war, and destruction. They had sown the wind; now, they could expect to reap the whirlwind. But, contrary to expectation again, the Lord moves in a different way.
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” - Hosea 2:14
The Lord is a God of mercy. Compassionate mercy flows forth from him in an even, unceasing stream. Israel deserved death. They deserved complete ruin for disgracing the name of the God they were entrusted to. Yet, He spoke to them in the most tender voice possible - a baby’s cry from a lonely manger in Bethlehem. His plan to save and deliver them was not the military conquest they were hoping for. It was not a king to stand at the helm of vast armies with swords and chariots aimed at all the world. It was His own son, Who would take up a wooden cross in place of a royal throne.
And when the Savior did come, when the foot of God trod the very dirt that soaked up their tiresome tears waiting for deliverance, many of them missed Him. They didn’t see the King of Kings because their expectations were distorted, twisting the words of God from Scripture with the desires of their own hearts of stone.
Where is God showing up in our own lives that we are oblivious to? How have our expectations of what God should do blinded us to what He is doing? Are we expecting a chariot of blessing to whisk us away to God when He is really standing right in the trial with us? Are we waiting for a deliverance, ignoring the one that has already come?
Let us be a church that prays for God to open our eyes to where He is moving today, because He is a God Who often moves contrary to our expectations in ways that are much higher than our ways. - Jason Simon, Minister to Students