What are our expectations?

My friend Keturah asked me recently what I meant by an 'Expectation of Good.' She asked with the understanding that what we view as good...may in fact not be good. As a toddler, my sister Amanda wanted to look just like Boy George. She thought that would be 'good.' My mom had the wisdom to encourage her in more fashion saavy directions, that were in fact good. We may want a job or relationship to work thinking it would be good. But God often says 'no' because He knows it is not good.

So in light of my blog's title, what is this good that we are expecting?

I initially responded to Keturah that I think expecting good mainly rests on our perception of God's character. One of my fifth grade Sunday School girls said she sometimes views God as a strict teacher.

I admit that most of my life, I lived with the same perception. I imagined God sitting in heaven blessing the perfect and cursing the corrupt. Unfortunately, that meant that my discontentment must be a result of my imperfections.

But, note popular memory verse Matthew 7:11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"

God is good. So we expect good...from Him.

I also read this quote from NT Wright in Surprised by Hope (see previous post 'Resurrected Crazy'), "Hope for the Christian is not wishful thinking or mere blind optimism. It is a mode of knowing, a mode within which new things are possible, options are not shut down, new creation can happen."

I like Wright's definition. Expecting good means viewing God as One whose character is so founded on resurrection, restoration, reconciliation...that we can honestly and realistically trust in those concepts for our life.