Expectations

As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God?” (2 Kings 5:7)

But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. (2 Kings 5:11)

In the passage we read on Sunday, the King of Israel and the King of Aram (who are enemies but currently enjoying a temporary truce) both have a lot of expectations. The King of Aram sends a ton of money to the King of Israel to purchase healing for Naaman, the army general of Aram. The assumption is that money and power can buy favor. The assumption is that the great healer in Israel must be at the royal court. And later Naaman himself show's his expectations that he’ll have to do something difficult and sacrificial to get healed. And the King of Israel assumes that the King of Aram is playing a political game to create an opportunity for more military conflict. It’s a tangled web of immaturity, lack of curiosity, and failed expectations.

Elisha is simple. He doesn’t need recognition. He trusts that Yahweh is at work. He’s not interested in money or power. He has low expectations - and a lot more joy (and sanity).

How have expectations worked in your life? Take a few moments to reflect on these words from a wise pastor about how to manage our expectations and our reactions.

The number of things I have control over is always a much smaller number of things than I wish it were. And at the same time, I loathe the idea of passivity. So I keep plodding along trying to make things happen when really the only thing I truly have any control over is my response to life. Not my reactions…those are too swift and innate. But I can control how I respond. I’m working on that.

This is the issue with having expectations: when I have a predetermined set of outcomes that must be met in order to be pleased with an event, I set myself up for less satisfaction, not more…

I guess at this point in life, all I can really hope for is to have the distance between my selfish, immature, cranky reactions and my more moderate, considered, mature responses to life’s disappointments, frustrations and assholes to be a tiny bit quicker as I get older. – Nadia Boltz-Weber