hope, expectation, faithfulness

Psalm 42:5 (New International Version, ©2010)

 5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
   Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
   for I will yet praise him,
   my Savior and my God. 

Every day you will hear someone say, "I hope...happens".  I hope the Packers win, I hope I made an A on the test, I hope class gets out early, etc.  What happens when we put our hope in circumstances changing?  Be that something small like the outcome of a football game, or the bid you place on the house you want to buy, or the health/salvation of a loved one. 

Prayer requests are tough issues for me.  We present God with this list of things we would like him to do or change, as if he's our secretary.  Even good things:  Jesus bring salvation to so-n-so, or heal so-n-so from cancer, or xyz in Africa.  Rarely does the church teach/preach that our objective in prayer is to find out what God is doing in the earth, in our lives and we get to agree with what he's doing. 

Lord what is your heart for Kenya?  Lord what are you doing in so-n-so's life?  Scripture says His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  God's plan for dealing with me and the cancer in my life, may have nothing to do with cells growing in my uterus but more to do with the cancer of fear, control, and self-hatred. 

Many of us, believing that God loves to do miracles and work in the supernatural, have expectations that circumstances will change.  The physical cancer will be gone, the marriage will be restored, the debt will be erased. 

If God's character is always true, how is he faithful when our circumstances don't change?  When you don't get the answer to the request you made...how is it that you can still say he is faithful?  Because He is faithful whether your circumstances change or not. 

I fully believe God wants to know what's in our hearts, and wants us to make our requests known to him.

Philippians 4:6 (New International Version, ©2010)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

But it ultimately boils down to the prayer that Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane:  

Matthew 26:39 (New International Version, ©2010)
 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

So then in all of this rambling, how do we as believers, come before God asking him to bring heaven to earth, do the work of the supernatural, perform miracles, change our circumstances, etc and not walk around disappointed feeling rejected, abandoned and deflated.  How do we press in to a miraculous God and walk away still praising Him, declaring his faithfulness, when our circumstances don't change...or even when they get worse?

This is just my theory:  My hope is in God....that he will be who he says he will be.  I hope in the I AM.  My expectation is that He will remain true to his character and the principles and plans he laid out before the foundation of the earth.  He always has been and always will be a Redeemer, a Restorer.  But his timing is not my timing.  His ways are not my ways.  His priorities are not my priorities.  I will trust that He is God and is smarter than me.  And when circumstances don't change and I don't understand why, when I don't get it, when my heart is hurting from the very real pain that this world brings, I will look to him and request that he gives me wisdom and understanding to why things worked out differently than I had asked for.  I will tell him that though I don't understand, I will declare that He is faithful.  I will say He is good. 

My hope and expectation is that He is faithful.  Even if my circumstances never change because He is God, not my circumstances.  In that stance there is liberty, there is joy, there is peace.