To start this article, I’d like to discuss two contrasting stories that I’ve seen in the news in the past week, plus a fictional story. All of them deal with our expectations of God vs. the reality of God.
The Expectations We Have
The first is an interview with comedian/actor Billy Crystal. He discusses how he processed the grief of two immense losses experienced very close together: the destruction of his home in the Palisades fires in January 2025 and the death of his good friend Rob Reiner in December 2025. In his 2014 one-man show “700 Sundays”, he had mentioned conversations he had with God. In the interview about his new show “860” (named for his house address), he was asked if he still talks to God. His answer was “No. I don’t trust Him. Not any more. Too many bad things have happened.”
The second is a speech by radio host (among many other accomplishments) Dennis Prager. He suffered a catastrophic injury two years ago that resulted in complete paralysis from the neck down. He used the occasion of his first public speech since the accident to share how and why it has not robbed him of his joy in life. One statement that struck me is that a lot of people experiencing tragedy become atheists because they expected God to protect them, and it didn’t happen. Prager says (starting at about the 20-minute point of the video) that he is not disappointed in God, because he never expected God to protect him. He knew that tragedy is not confined to “the other guy”, that he was just as likely to be that other guy…and now he is.
A third example is a fictional scene from The Chosen TV series. During the same week as the stories about Billy Crystal and Dennis Prager (a “God coincidence”!), our Bible Study class “just happened” to watch the episode where Jesus asks Judas:
“If I don’t do whatever big thing you’ve imagined I should do at this time, will you still believe?” (“Yes, of course.”) “Then why are you suggesting that you know better than I do what should be the next best course of action?”
Judas couldn’t accept the thought that Jesus might not do His “Messiah” thing in the expected way 1.
What all three examples have in common are the questions they bring up: What do we have a right to expect from God? How will we react when God doesn’t meet our expectations?
The Expectations We DON’T Have a Right To Have
As I write this article, I have just had a wonderful weekend. My husband and I celebrated a wedding anniversary with a drive through the mountains seeing the changing fall colors. We ate far too much at a restaurant that we have been wanting to try for years. The next day, we ate too much again…this time at one of our usual restaurants, where our favorite server offered us a free anniversary dessert. That was followed by a nap on our deck on a beautiful clear afternoon with a gentle breeze stirring the nearby wind chimes, my idea of a perfect day.
Did I deserve any of that, or have a right to expect it? No. If the weekend had been awful, with bad weather, car trouble, and illness, would that have meant that God failed and let me down? Again, no. To be blunt, it is not God’s job to make me happy. He doesn’t owe me anything. Whatever I enjoy from Him is purely due to His grace.
In the Old Testament, a hero of faith understood that. After losing his wealth, his children, and his health, Job had this conversation with his wife:
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Job 2:9-10 (my emphasis)
Job wasn’t indifferent to his suffering, of course. He wondered why so much bad stuff happened to him. While he did not stop worshipping God, he did cry and complain to Him. Even more than wanting the suffering to go away, he demanded an explanation for it. What he got instead was expanded perspective: that God is God, and — again — is not required to make us happy 2.
In another Old Testament illustration, three young men demonstrated their understanding of God’s obligation to them…or lack thereof. Given the choice between life (for worshipping the king’s idol) and death (for holding onto God), they chose God…even if He chose not to save them.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
Daniel 3:16-18
The Expectations We DO Have a Right to Have
But what about how much God loves us? What happened to “Ask, and you shall receive” (John 14:13-14)? Where’s that abundant life Jesus talked about (John 10:10)? Doesn’t Psalms say that “A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you.” (Psalm 91:7)?
The answers are in God’s sovereignty and in His intimacy with us. He never told us we could expect a life full of sunshine and butterflies. Instead, He tells us to expect Him to work everything out according to His good plan (which is scaled in millennia, not in days or years), and to be with us during the journey.
Sovereignty
His sovereignty answers that God and His plan for His creation are bigger than the tiny slice we can see. We don’t understand how that plan could include all the misery that the world has experienced. How can all the deaths from the Nazi 3 Holocaust (6 million Jews, over 5 million non-Jews), the Soviet 4 Gulag (over 1.5 million), Mao’s 5 “Great Leap Forward” starvation in China (30-45 million), or Pol Pot’s 6 killing fields in Cambodia (1.5-2 million, 25% of 7-million population) possibly be worth it? There’s no way! Yet, God says there is a way.
Those things — and even the natural disasters that come with our broken world — are the result of human sin. That sin is the result of God giving humans a choice, and then of us choosing badly. To stop the sin would mean stopping our freedom, even our freedom to choose well. God knew all that, in advance, and decided human freedom was that important.
Intimacy
Now for the good news…God in His sovereignty also chooses intimacy. He allows the hurt because He can see past it, to the end result that He has planned. But He doesn’t sit complacently on His throne at the finish line waiting for us to stumble our way there.
Instead, He chooses to share in our sorrows, to walk beside us and to cry along with us (John 11:33-35). Everything that He allows to hurt us also hurts Him. As Isaiah predicted of Jesus, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” and “our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried” (Isaiah 53:3-4). In fact, the whole point of the Gospel is that God chose to come in person to share our sorrows as one of us!
Not only did He share those sorrows, He gave His life to defeat the sin that causes them. Then He rose from the grave to prove His victory over it. Finally, He promised to still be with us “always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Our Good Shepherd is there beside us, even in the “valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4).
Yes, Even If…
It’s true: God doesn’t exist for my purposes; I exist for His. But it’s also true that His purposes are beyond imagining, and that they are good…even for my good, even when they hurt (Romans 8:28).
Writing this from the comfort of my currently very happy life may seem trite or falsely cheerful. But I am convinced that it is absolutely true. I pray that — like Job, like the boys in the fire, like Dennis Prager — I will cling to that truth…
- …even if my house burns down;
- …even if my friend is murdered;
- …even if I become paralyzed;
- …even if I lose everything I have;
- …even if I’m threatened with death for still trusting.
And, even if God never does what I want Him to!
Besides, what is the alternative? The losses and tragedies are going to happen, anyway. Would I rather disregard the evidence, and endure them without knowing that God is there, He is in control, and He loves me? Without trust that there is a purpose that will be revealed someday, there is nothing left but despair. Ick! Jesus died to save me from that dead end.
Note: Similar articles on this site include “Why Bad Things Happen“, “God’s Way“, “God’s Not Wrong” and “Rejoice, Even in the Worst of Times“.
Footnotes and Scripture References
- The writers are developing Judas’ character to match a common interpretation: That his betrayal was an attempt to force Jesus to show His power. That explains his remorse and suicide afterward, when his plan backfired. While this is only one interpretation among several others, it does seem quite plausible.
- For the condensed version of the conversation, see Job 38, then 40:1-5, then 40:6-14, then 42:1-6. There is also more discussion about Job in the article “Trust vs Understanding“.)
- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) — the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
- Communist Party of China (CPC / CCP)
- Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) a.k.a. Khmer Rouge