The day had finally arrived. All my expectations for this moment of gift exchange, were very high. As the person opened it, everything inside me was giddy. Then shock. The response was not what I had expected. They put it aside and went to the next. I was crushed. Disappointment saturated my whole being. A dark moodiness set in that ruined the rest of the day.

All of us, at one time or another, have had some pretty high expectations about something or someone, and just as many of us have experienced disappointment with those expectations. That is because disappointment is the fruit of expectations.

To help us better understand, we need to look at and compare the words expectations and desires. Desires come from God’s desire for us. He desires us so much that He brought us into existence out of nothing and keeps us in existence. God desires that we have access to Him and can share in His divine life. Even when we sinned and turned away from Him, He desires us so much that He sends His Son to save us. As His images, He has placed within us a desire for happiness. All humanity desires happiness. He does this for He knows that only He is the fulfillment of all man’s desires. This fulfillment of desire brings joy.

Expectations are our desires cloaked in control. When we have expectations, we tend to develop the playing field and reduce the odds to a more personal advantageous outcome. Literally, we attempt to control how and when our desires will be fulfilled. Expectations tend to be biased towards our perceptions and preferences. Thus we become blinded to possibilities beyond our expected scope and thus limit God, because we are not open and attuned to God’s presence among us. The end result? Disappointment.

A great example of this we can find in the Bible. Israel had become the chosen people of God. He made a series of covenants with them over the centuries promising He would send a Messiah that would deliver them from bondage and bring them into great freedom and true peace. Over the centuries they began to add their human perspectives to what this promise would look like. Those perspectives became expectations. They expected a Messiah that was like King David, a man of power and military might delivering them from the bondage of Rome. When Jesus came meek and humble as the God/man, a carpenter from Nazareth, who spoke of the Reign of and Kingdom of God as something interior, Israel as a whole, did not recognize Him. John the Baptist captures this well when he says “I baptize you with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize….” (Jn. 1:29).

Expectations lead us down the rabbit holes of disappointment and blindness. Desires that God places within us lead to joy and peace. Which do you choose?

For Reflection:
Do some self examining. Do you see times when you have been filled with expectations? With desires? What are the differences? Do you want to be filled with peace and joy or disappointment?

Prayer: O God, I beg You to change my expectations into Your desires. Fill me with Your joy.

(Blogged December 15, 2023)
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The noise and frolicking of summer is behind me. The harvest and canning is stacked on storage shelves. The frantic pace of trying to get everything outside done before the ground freezes and nasty weather sets in has exhausted me. “Black Friday” and “Cyberspace Monday” have assailed me. Then, along comes Advent inviting me to slow down, take a breath, and remember Christ is coming.

“For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all powerful word leaped from heaven from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed….” Wisdom 18:14-15

Advent is a time to prepare for the second coming of Jesus, who leaps down into the darkness of night. We are challenged to prepare for His coming in silence and reflection; to be embraced by and to embrace silence.

Why? God always speaks in silence; His language is silence; He works in silence. He directs His words and actions to our heart, the place of encounter. To be silent before God is to be absolutely available to Him. It is within the silence of our hearts where we are transformed; our heart grafted to His; our thoughts one with His thoughts. Silence is sacred because silence is God’s dwelling place and He writes in silence on the solitude of the human heart.

Silence is a very challenging thing and frightens the heck out of most of us. To seek God in silence is way over the top for most people. Robert Cardinal Sarah in his book The Power of Silence speaks of the dictatorship of noise. He says that modern man can no longer do without this dictator. Man avoids silence because he is afraid of facing himself and what he might find. He fears encountering God and what He might say to him. To avoid this fearful encounter, man builds a false security with permanent background noise and activity. We no longer hear God because we are constantly speaking, constantly seeking information on electronic devices, constantly filling every waking hour with noise.

Cardinal Sarah says “Noise is a deceptive, addictive, and false tranquilizer….This age detests the things that silence brings us to: encounter, wonder, and kneeling before God….In killing silence, man assassinates God.” Noise, the Cardinal says, is the “desecration of the soul, the silent ruin of the interior life.” [1]

It is into this land of noise and doom that Jesus, the Word, leaps down from heaven, and in the silence of the womb of the Virgin is conceived, and in the silence of the stable, born. The Cardinal says, “From silence is born silence. Through God the silent, we can attain silence.” Advent is an invitation for us to slow down; be still, and enter into His silence. May Jesus be born anew in the silent stable of your heart this Advent and Christmas season.

[1] Cardinal Sarah, Robert, “The Power of Silence”, Ignatius Press, 2017, pgs. 56-57

For Reflection:
Advent invites us to enter into the silence of God and to be alone with Him. How does this frighten me? How does silence unnerve or challenge me? How can I use the Advent season to prepare my heart for the silent encounter with God?

Prayer:
Jesus, Your birth in the messiness of a stable, in the silence of night, is not mere sentiment but an invitation to enter into the mystery of silence and Your birth. Help me to embrace this silence that I may truly prepare for Your second coming anew in my life this Christmas.

(Blogged December 1, 2023)
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