I kind of laugh at this story. Because I really didn’t expect this to happen, or plan for this to happen. A few years ago, I wrote a blog titled “How To Break Down Your Barbie Dream House“. I played with Barbie’s growing up, and in college, me and two friends had Barbie nicknames. I was Midge, obviously, because of the red hair and blue eyes.
So when I wrote that post, it was kind of in a way, just a fun post, with deep meaning. It being “click bait” was never even a thought in my mind. I really didn’t anticipate that this post would end up, years later, driving more than 50% of the traffic to my site each year.
The Story Of How God Used Barbie To Point People To Jesus
You wouldn’t be able to guess how many people Google “how to break down Barbie dream house”, or something similar to that. You also probably would expect people to find instructions on how to break it down. But my post usually shows up number 1 on that Google search, without any break down posts that follow it.
Now, if you just Googled how to break down Barbie’s Dream House, let me give you a better option. Find someone with a young girl to pass it down to. I promise they will be incredibly thankful.
But my post wasn’t really about taking apart a doll house. You can read it here, but it was about that sometimes we can view life like Barbie’s dream house. Because when I grew up, there was no sickness, or disagreements, or mistakes and disappointments when I played Barbie. And sometimes we can approach the future like there won’t be any hardships, therefore making hardships harder to endure, because they blindside us to the point of being disappointed in how our life has gone.
The post encourage readers to make a home in the Word of God, and to put our hope in Jesus, and not our shattered dreams. Trusting Him, and choosing to endure when hard times.
God did the unexpected…when I didn’t expect it.
Yes, God did more than I could think or imagine with that post. But what happens when we actually expect God to do something, and He doesn’t do it according to our plan?
Last year, this happened to me. I had a grand idea of how something was going to go. The plan was in my head. It was wonderful, and God was going to move how I expected of course.
And that in part didn’t happen. I was left disappointed in myself, wondering how things had ended so differently than I expected.
Now, let me say this. Was God glorified? Yes. But I was still disappointed. As I look back, I realized it was I had put God in a box, expecting the outcome to be exactly as I had plan. But God had other plans.
I have grown to see that everything happened according to His plan and not mine. However, I was extremely upset at the time, that my expectations didn’t meet what had actually happened.
I shared before that God moved without any expectations on my part, just a hope that He would use my blog to encourage someone. But what happens when we have our own expectations?
First, we have to trust God, and the only expectation we should have is that God will do more than we can ask or imagine. God isn’t limited by the things that limit us, and that means that He isn’t limited by our expectations of Him.
His ways are higher than our ways, but if we are dead set on what we expect God to do, we won’t be left in awe of what He has done, but disappointed by what we thought He should have done, but didn’t.
Will God ever leave us disappointed?
That is a good question. Because I was disappointed, crushed even. But it wasn’t because of God. It was because I expected something, without the prayer of “your will be done”, accompanying that.
My expectations were wrong though. But when are only expectation is that God will do more than we ask or imagine, we will never be disappointed. And if we pray, and end our prayers with “your will be done”, and believe that despite our expectations, we will never be disappointed.
I know this to be true, because God knows us to well, and loves us too much. He created us in our mother’s womb, and knows our deepest, most intimate thoughts. God also knows our needs better than we do, and sometimes will give us one thing instead of what we ask for.
Because God knows us so deeply, and He is a good Father, we will always be satisfied with the live He leads us in.
I think of the story when Jesus encourages us to not worry. He notes the birds in the sky and the flowers of the field. These are things that God needs the needs of. If He takes care of the needs of the birds, and the flowers, even more will He care for us.
So let us approach God, and the things He calls us to do, with the only expectation of Him doing more than we can ask or imagine. May we always end our prayers with “Your will be done.” And let us trust that His ways are higher than ours, because He is God.
