Expectations and Disappointments

I love being in the outdoors. There is nothing quite as thrilling as hiking through the woods, the smell of trees and warm dirt, the smell of sweat and hard work, and at last—the arrival at your destination. My favorites are view hikes, although I have to admit that they are particularly disappointing when you reach the top and the view is shrouded in clouds. Yes, there is worthiness in the journey itself and not just in the destination, but I’ve always felt like the view is the cherry on top.

Mt. Rainier is still my all-time favorite place to hike—and I’ve hiked a lot of places—but there’s something about “home” here for me and when I’m there, it’s as though my soul comes alive and I feel God’s presence and his life-breath in me like no other place on earth.

It’s probably no secret that being outside is good not only for our physical health, but also for our mental and spiritual well-being. Any cursory study of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and many other similar challenges, bring up the health benefits of exercise and/or being outside.

As I’ve struggled in recent months with depression, one of my lifelines has been walking outside. It may not necessarily be about the actual exercise component (if I’m letting my toddler walk, the pace is not quite what it is when I’ve got her in the pack), but it’s about being outside in fresh air. This past week the air quality has been too poor to be outside (due to local forest fires), especially with a young one. Having to be conscious of the air quality and choosing to not risk it has definitely made me appreciate the majority of time that our air is clean and we are able to be outside.

Wind and even a little rain has cleared the air this weekend and we decided to go for an evening walk. I had seen the beginning of a trail through the woods about two blocks from our home and I wanted to explore where it went. While my husband wasn’t overly thrilled by this adventure (as far as we could see from the beginning of the trail, it climbed straight up into the woods), I was excited to explore. I was reminded again of how much I like variety, even when it comes to where we walk.

I loved the trail. It was beautiful. We meandered through woods. We walked up and down and curved all over an area that probably isn’t actually all that large, but whoever designed the trail system seemed to want to maximize distance. I didn’t know where the trail would end up—the adventure and exploration was the fun part—but I also just like being ‘on the trail,’ especially since we live in the city and haven’t been able to go hiking much this summer.

We neared the end and my husband dejectedly exclaimed, “We’re right back where we started! What a waste!”

I laughed out loud.

He was genuinely and absolutely disappointed with this loop hike (And by hike, I say this rather loosely—it’s a trail in the woods that’s less than a mile). I, on the other hand, really like loop hikes because I like variety and it’s more fun if the entire hike is new versus hiking one direction and having to repeat the same path. I wasn’t at all disappointed by the fact that we’d returned to where we’d started; I had enjoyed the path along the way.

His indignation for the hike prompted not only my continued laughter, but also prompted conversation about why he was so disappointed. And this, my friend, is key. He was expecting to end up someplace different and cool and maybe even exciting. Therefore, ending up right where we’d begun was none of those, hence the disappointment.

Expectations can be a brutal. Having a tendency toward perfectionism, sometimes expectations can really bite me in the butt. I can remember a period in my life when I used to have to constantly remind myself to lower my expectations so that I would be less disappointed and disappointed less altogether.

It’s an interesting thing to ponder—lowering our expectations. I feel like the motivational and inspirational messages we hear always admonish us to ‘reach for the stars’ to ‘expect miracles,’ to ‘dream big.’ But then what happens when we land flat on our face, when we fail, when we don’t see miracles?

Disappointment.

The older I get, the more disappointment I’ve experienced. Disappointment is actually sometimes what I’ve come to expect. Ouch.

Expectations, disappointments, and a loop hike that returned us to exactly where we started got me thinking the journey of faith. How many times have you wondered where God is taking you, what He is up to in your life, and why it sometimes feels like you’ve ended up in the same exact place?

Ever been disappointed with God? Don’t worry…you won’t lose your salvation if you answered yes. 😉 I definitely have. I’ve prayed deep-seated anguished prayers for certain things that weren’t answered as I desired. I’ve watched people suffer and asked God for mercy and peace in their life, only to wait far longer than I would have wished to have gotten that answer. I look around at the atrocities and injustices of this world and it breaks my heart that my prayers don’t seem to have visible results.

After God delivered the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, He performed mighty miracles, but they were disappointed, expecting God to provide in other ways than He was (only manna for apparently what felt like forever was really tough on them, among other things). And you know what happened? They wandered in the desert for 40 years taking a journey that could have only taken 11 days.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Forty years. 11 days. People died along the way. The unbelieving generation didn’t complete the journey to the promised land. They expected something different rather than trusting God’s provisions.

How have your expectations led to disappointment? Maybe it’s expectations of yourself, expectations of others, expectations of God—whatever the case may be, and maybe even all of the above—have contributed to disappointments. Maybe you feel like you’ve ended up right back where you started. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wander for 40 years on a path that could take 11 days. Perhaps what is needed is not necessarily lowering expectations, but changing them, trusting in a God who is ever-faithful.