What If Jesus Doesn't Do What You Expected?

By Pastor John Erickson

Have you ever had a picture in your head of how life was supposed to go?

You prayed for something. You planned for something. Maybe you even thought, This is exactly what God wants. And then it didn't happen.

The job went to somebody else. The relationship didn't work out. The opportunity disappeared. The season you pictured never arrived.

I remember looking ahead to the year when all of our children would finally be in school. Gina and I had a picture of what that new season would mean. Then the pandemic interrupted school, family routines, and the way we gathered as a church. What I had imagined was not what happened.

I do not particularly enjoy having my expectations corrected. I would rather have my plans work out, thank you very much.

But there's a question I've been wrestling with: Was I putting my hope in Jesus, or in the outcome I wanted Jesus to give me?

Because those are not necessarily the same thing.

Peter Had a Plan for Jesus

The first disciples didn't follow Jesus without expectations. They had plenty of expectations.

Israel had lived under foreign powers for generations. The people longed for a Messiah, a king who would deliver them and restore what had been lost.

So imagine following Jesus. You see his miracles. You hear him teach with authority. You begin to think, This is it. This is the one.

And then in Mark 8:31 Jesus explains that he must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again.

Peter doesn't like the plan.

In fact, Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him.

Think about how incredible that is. Peter is essentially telling Jesus, "You need to rethink your strategy."

Jesus responds sharply: Peter is focused on human concerns rather than God's concerns.

Peter wanted a conquering king. Jesus was telling him about a suffering Messiah.

The problem wasn't that Peter had no faith. The problem was that he had already decided what faithfulness should look like.

I wonder how often we do exactly the same thing.

When Good Desires Become Our Source of Hope

There's nothing wrong with hoping for a good job, a healthy family, a repaired relationship, or a better future. Those are good things to bring to God.

But we can quietly turn good desires into conditions for trusting him.

God, I'll be at peace when you fix this.

I'll believe you're leading me when that door opens.

I'll know you're working when life looks the way I pictured.

At that point, our hope may be resting more on our preferred outcome than on God's character.

I remember being young and praying very hard that a particular person would like me back. It did not work out. The intensity of my prayer apparently did not force another person's feelings to cooperate.

It's a small example, but it exposes something in me. Sometimes I want God to bless my plan more than I want to follow his.

And those disappointments can be genuinely painful. Jesus isn't asking us to pretend otherwise.

He is inviting us to trust someone bigger than our expectations.

Even the Resurrection Didn't Fix Their Expectations Immediately

The disciples watched Jesus die. Whatever picture they had of his victory must have seemed shattered.

Then something extraordinary happened: Jesus rose from the dead.

In Acts 1, Luke tells us that Jesus spent forty days appearing to them and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Forty days! The resurrected Jesus is personally teaching them about God's kingdom.

And what do they ask him?

"Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

I can almost imagine Jesus thinking, We are still here?

Their question shows how deeply their expectations were rooted. Even after the resurrection, they were still trying to understand God's work in the categories they already knew.

Jesus doesn't give them the timetable they want. Instead, he tells them they will receive power through the Holy Spirit and become his witnesses to the ends of the earth.

As a Pentecostal, I appreciate that promise of power. But power for what? The next words matter. Jesus connects the Spirit's power with being his witnesses, not with gaining control over everyone around them.

The purpose of that power isn't to help them get their preferred version of the kingdom.

It is to bear witness to Jesus.

Jesus Is Not Here to Serve Our Agenda

This is uncomfortable, but important: Jesus does not exist to serve our agenda. We exist to follow him.

I know how easy it is to reverse that.

We ask him to protect the things we love, fix our circumstances, and make our plans succeed. And there is nothing wrong with asking. Jesus teaches us to ask our Father for what we need.

But we don't get to make ourselves the center of the story.

When our whole picture of the future depends on one outcome, our hope becomes incredibly fragile. If the outcome falls apart, we feel as if everything has fallen apart.

The disciples had to learn that the kingdom Jesus was bringing was far bigger than the one they imagined.

And sometimes we have to learn that too.

There's Room for a Bigger Hope

Maybe you are standing in the middle of a disappointment right now. Something you expected hasn't happened. You're struggling to make sense of it.

I'm not going to tell you to put on a happy face. Jesus wept. The disciples grieved. Disappointment is real.

But perhaps this is an opportunity to ask a better question.

Instead of only asking, "Jesus, why didn't you make my plan work?" we can ask, "Jesus, what are you doing, and how can I follow you here?"

Instead of demanding a timetable, we can pay attention to the people in front of us who need his love.

Our plans may change. Our expectations may be wrong. Our lives may not look the way we thought they would.

But Jesus is still Jesus.

That's a much bigger place to put our hope.