The human heart can be so deceiving. You can make a decision based off of relative emotion, be judge and jury to your own personal hearing, and commit to your decision: This is how I feel about it. Period.
When I was 6 years old, my aunt and uncle bought a van. Not a minivan. A van. A huge van. It was white with hidden compartments all over, and it had seats everywhere, TVs inside, and cupholders on every surface. To my 6-year-old brain, this was a house on wheels. I think I even told my parents that. It was huge, magnificent even. I told myself that day, “One day, when I can drive, I will have a van like this. It will be green because this month, that’s my favorite color.”
My dad still likes to joke about how I determined at such a young age what kind of vehicle I would drive based on characteristics that I thought was important. I clung to that expectation for YEARS. I was the only kid in my elementary school who thought having a van one day would be awesome. He still laughs about how I continued to argue with everyone that I was going to get a van and never change my mind when they would suggest I may grow to like something else. I never got a van, in fact, I turned 15 and, obviously, did not want a van. I couldn’t get my mind off of Jeep Wranglers, so that was what I drove.
I set my 6-year-old heart on something that didn’t make sense yet. I assumed that the things I cared about at age 6 would still be important to me at 16. Clearly, they weren’t, though extra cupholders are never a bad idea. As adults, do we not still do this to ourselves?
Except today, we call it expectation and the inevitable disappointment that typically accompanies it. Expectation is like that friend who always shows up to a dinner uninvited, but they are so optimistic and hopeful that you let them in and even enjoy their company. Disappointment is like her overly pragmatic husband that tags along, whom everyone just has to tolerate because no one knows if he’ll actually say something or not. No one knows yet if he’ll be right about whatever the situation is, but when he is, Expectation then shrinks to the back of the room in silence. Sometimes, they’re the worst dinner guests, and your own worst enemies.
A few months ago, I started a Statistics for Business Research class for my doctoral degree, and I went into it with the same mindset that I do for all of my classes. “Research is my area. This will be cake.” I knew several research papers were required for the class. I had no reason to worry. What I had not planned on was a new professor who completely hated the way that I write. He didn’t care so much for my analysis as he did for my calculations. Up to this point, I have had several of the same professors, so I knew who I was writing for and what academic style they preferred. I went into this situation naive. I may as well have told myself I was getting a green van out of it.
By the end of the course, when I passed it (hallelujah!), I realized that I learned a lot more about calculating statistics, and even research, than I had realized. I spent the first half of the class stressed out, blindsided, disappointed, and upset about a few early grades that were below my personal standard. At the end of the course, he wrote on my final, “I really enjoyed reading your papers. You conduct excellent research.” I had given up in the beginning. I honestly thought about dropping the course and studying it some more before retaking it again, and several of my classmates did drop it. I didn’t think I was ready. I got in my head about it and started to psych myself out. My progress to this point, my known capabilities, my strong constitution and confidence levels were far from my mind. In their absence, all I could see was that glaring 73 (among other not-so-excellent grades) and huge list of notes he left me on my feedback page.
But then it happened. I got ONE good grade back. I received ONE comment of good feedback in a discussion from a classmate. I saw how to calculate ONE correlation and became interested in how the scenario applied to real life, to my life. I started to care about it because it started to make sense. I just needed a little more exposure to it. I needed to stop thinking so much about my limitations and intimidations. I needed to stop assuming so much.
I needed to stop allowing the domestic dispute between Expectation and Disappointment to take over my thoughts and feelings, even guiding my actions. The heart is so deceptive, sometimes. I had made up my mind that I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready.
The Bible says,
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ‘I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.'”
Jeremiah 17:9-10
Since the green van incident and the business class, I still expect things to be a certain way. I’m human, but the difference is, I try to look at everything with a faithful heart. I look at things that happen in my life, in the lives of other people, and I try not to get caught up on what I think or assume should happen. I trust God. He gave me a responsibility to abandon the ways that are not like Him, which includes the human heart being, well, completely human and solely occupied with this world and not His Word.
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
I think when we assume responsibility for expecting and controlling our universe, it really speaks volumes about how little faith we have in our Creator’s abilities, in His abiding love, and in the depths of His mercy and grace. We need to see it from His perspective, from the scope that He wants us to look at our lives through.
“Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law.”
Psalm 119:18
I hope that you can set your mind at ease today. I hope that you can hand it to God, whatever stage you’re in—whether you’re still stress eating appetizers with Expectation in blind, relentless hope or experiencing the letdown of Disappointment’s inevitable righteousness. Give it to God. Pray about it. The human heart, while deceptive at times, is also conditioned for love. You have to stop letting things that shake your confidence actually break your constitution.
Know yourself, hold tight to your identity, and if you don’t like something about where you are, then change it. Just don’t let an opportunity for growth stop you from learning from it. Step out of your comfort zone if you have to, it can be a wild ride. And sometimes, you’ll find that you’ve stepped so far out that you end up all the way across the country, encountering God, and watching a rainbow stretch its rays over the hazy, sunlit Monument Valley, Utah when you least expect it. Your awareness in those moments are what can change your life.
God Bless,
M
Blue Withens 