At the end of the day have you ever felt like possibly He was
disappointed, sad, or frustrated with you?
How would you complete the following statement?
I feel like I frustrate God most when I ____________________________
In this study, let's take some time to think about frustration.
1. Take a moment to list the most frustrating aspects of our life
at this present time:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
2. As you look over that list, what commonalities do you see between
the frustrations? In other words, what is it that makes a frustration
frustrating?
3. Does the following diagram help?
you ---------------->BLOCK-------------->goal (expectation)
You have a goal (or expectation), and something (or someone) stands
between you and goal's realization. You can see a child physically
demonstrate it in a tantrum when the parent says "no"
and holds the line. The heart of the matter wasn't the parent's
refusal to give in but rather the fact that the child had expectations
that weren't being met.
Therefore, if only we knew what God expected of us, then we would
know whether or not He ever got frustrated with our behaviors!
John 15:5 (pg. 912) sheds some light on our question. In that
verse, Jesus expressed His expectations of us when He said ".
. . without me you can do nothing." God knows that without
His intervention we will most certainly fail. God in His infinite
wisdom and understanding is never surprised, shocked or amazed
by our actions. What's He going to say? "I thought you'd
do better?" That could only come from someone who couldn't
know what was going to happen in the future. That thought is ludicrous
in relation to God.
Nevertheless, in all of this we must make a distinction between
God's STANDARDS and God's EXPECTATIONS. God's standards are based
directly on His character. He is holy; therefore, His standard
is holiness. In contrast, God's expectations are based upon His
understanding of who we are. His expectations fluctuate with where
we are at that moment. He know us that well. His expectations
are always reasonable; His standards are always out of our reach.
God's standards remain constant as He tells us what He desires
in His Word. However, God's understanding of us renders Him unshockable
-- incapable of being frustrated by what we might do or not do.
And that's great news!