While reading the book, The Shack, I remember using up several boxes of tissues—or so it seemed. The rhythm of my reading went something like this: cry, grab a tissue, turn a page; cry, grab a tissue, turn a page. Why was I so moved? Most obviously, the storyline itself was a tear-inducer: other reasons fanned out from there. While the book touched me emotionally, it also challenged me mentally and spiritually. It carries a message relayed from the heart of a father to the heart of his children, and the heart of Our Father to His children.
I was privileged to hear the author, William Young, speak at a church in DC a few months ago. In meeting the man, and listening to him share, it was easy to understand why the book has had such a powerful impact, its readership spread across the globe. The book was authored by a man I could only describe as “real people”: unassuming, honest, broken, and on the mend. The book is well-written, but I believe its appeal runs much deeper than that. It is hard for me to imagine someone reading the book, without it eliciting some kind of response—even if that response is one of anger at how the author portrays the persons of the Trinity, or the nature of the God-man relationship. Simply put, between the truths and experiences described, the book hits close to home, touching many aspects of our human life and realtionships.
I actually took notes as I read the book—both times. I did so to preserve the particular touch points that impacted me most strongly—nuggets of truth that I wanted to revisit in the future. For me, the book had many of them--too many to give adequate thought to all at once. One of the things I so love about truth, is that no matter in what form or package it arrives, or when it is delivered, God has a way of making sure it reaches its destination--and in perfect condition. Sometimes we find truth because we search for it, and at others, it arrives unexpectedly or unbidden. Nevertheless, once received, truth is a gift that keeps on giving as long as we retain possession of it. Truth never loses its luster, save temporarily; truth is like a nugget of precious metal that needs to be polished periodically to garner renewed appreciation of its beauty and worth.
One of the subjects addressed in The Shack, on which I have been contemplating lately, concerns “expectations.” Perhaps it is a subject particularly relevant to the beginning of a new year as we look ahead to what may unfold in the coming 12 months. In any case, I am increasingly aware of the role expectations play in our lives--in our introspections, perspectives, and relationships with other people and with God.
I have had some intense tug-of-wars between my changing views and feelings about expectations. For many years, I saw nothing particularly harmful about expectations; in fact, I thought them to be a normal, if not necessary, part of life. I accepted that there were qualifiers, as there were with most things, which helped differentiate the positive aspects from the more negative ones: some expectations were good, others less so. I would have heartily disagreed that living without expectations, if it were even possible, would be desirable. I suspect that my being a performance-oriented person might have had a slight influence on my perspective. I could have argued persuasively that expectations were fine with proper usage and when understood within the proper context.
With additional waters of life experience having passed under the bridge, I believe I look at expectations a little differently now, albeit my former understandings fell hard. I never realized the heavy weight of the load expectations produced—expectations of me, for me, and from me, either self or other-generated. It took me a lot of time and a considerable amount of processing to separate the truth from the lies, but the light has grown brighter. I have had to go to God repeatedly and ask Him to rescue me once again from the pit expectation into which I had fallen. As I struggled with understanding and a multitude of nagging, unanswered questions, I asked God to make me willing to be willing to see things His way.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; as we look into the perfect law of liberty and continue in it, we will walk free from earthly judgments and failure—and the yoke of expectations that is no longer ours to wear, by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ. It is my eager expectation, that if God has spoken it, He will bring it to pass and as He has purposed it, He will also do it. (Gal. 5:1, James 1:25, Is 46:11)
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