Expectations are tricky things because they lend hope to dark moments, but they also bring disappointment to great ones. I have written before about disappointment, but today I am thinking about how expectations might bring those disappointments about. The other night at small group one lady told me that she’s heard this equation before: happiness = reality - expectations. That makes sense, right? You cannot be disappointed by the unexpected. You must be pleased with reality when it automatically equals happiness. On the other hand, we need to cling to something in those dark moments. We need to expect a better morning when we go to bed, or else how do we get up? So, what is the balance? How do we temper our expectations without giving them up entirely?
There is a difference between hoping and expecting. To me, it is the difference between thankfulness and presumption. When something we hope for becomes a reality we receive it graciously, but when something we expected happens we acknowledge it like the sunrise - nice, but inevitable. So far as I can see, which admittedly is not far, the difference between these two is perspective. It’s not that we should go through life with no expectations. There are certain things we deserve and should be disappointed about losing. It’s simply that we should know the difference between hope and expectation. We should look to our souls and see those dreams hiding in there, then we should attempt to understand them as hopes or expectations.
We should hope for a publishing deal. We should expect that to take a lot of hard work. We should hope for the Cowboys to win all their games. We should expect them to lose a few throughout the season.
The good news is that hope is more powerful than expectations. Hope does something to the fabric of our souls that expectations simply cannot. Even President Snow understands that hope is the only thing stronger than fear. (S/O to my Hunger Games nerds). Hope matters. We should have it. And I will be so bold as to say we should have expectations as well. I'm just not sure we should expect and hope for all the same things.
There is another key thing here. Waiting. Expecting, in its literal sense, means waiting. If something is not as you expected, perhaps the best thing to do is wait. Or perhaps it is to stop waiting. I'm not sure yet.