Christi: Welcome to the smiling at the future podcast. My name is Christi Rose and this is my pursuit to glean practical wisdom on femininity, homemaking, finances, relationships, and singleness from the God-fearing men and women in my life. Hope you enjoy this journey with me as we learn to smile at the future. Hi everyone. I pray you all are enjoying your summer and learning to thrive as you look to Jesus the author and finisher of your faith.
Christi: If you have a topic suggestion or a question, you would like to hear answered in an episode, please send those to me at smiling at the future podcast at gmail.com. This podcast has been running for almost two years now, and my creative well is only so. I love suggestions. Plus, I really love hearing from you and getting the chance to meet you. So please don’t hesitate to drop me a line. Introduce yourself—we’d love that. You can also send messages through our Instagram page as well.
Christi: Today’s conversation will strike a chord with everyone as we all deal with unmet expectations, to one degree or another. My guest today is Lisa Hughes who just published a book on this topic called Unmet Expectations. And I’ll have that linked in the show notes for this episode, and I’ll let Lisa share more about herself. So, without further ado, here is our conversation.
Christi: Well, welcome Lisa to the podcast. I’m so excited to get to know you and for you to share about yourself with the listeners today. So would you just share where the Lord has you in your life and ministry, and also about the book that you just published?
Lisa: I would love to, and thank you so much, Christi. I am really excited to talk with you and though we haven’t met in person, I’ve really been enjoying just what I’ve been learning about you. So thank you for having me today.
Lisa: And so I’m just been a wife and a mom and a grandma now. My life—my husband’s been in ministry for 30-some years. And so I’ve kind of, I’ve just been doing all the same things for a really long time, and really, I love my life. I love all the things that the Lord has allowed me to do. And you know, we’re empty-nesters now, our kids are all grown, they’ve left the house and we’re all spread out. Nobody lives near, but we FaceTime and spend time together that way and talk on the phone a lot.
Lisa: And so I’m thankful for the closeness of our family and the Lord’s mercy to all of our kids in rescuing them from sin and Satan. And that is just a great blessing. And I really love where we live in Kentucky. And so we’ve lived in—we’re from Idaho, we’ve lived in Southern California, and then the Lord has brought us to Kentucky. We’ve lived in a few other places, and we just never thought we would live this far south or east in our lives. And we are having a ball and we really enjoy it.
Lisa: We’ve been out here now almost seven years, and my husband is the pastor of Anchor Bible Church out here, and that has been just a great blessing. And then I write Bible studies for our ladies of the church, wherever I’ve been. And I’ve done that ever since our daughter was born. She’s our oldest. And I was struggling to get my quiet time with this new baby and I was trying to figure out how to be faithful in spending time with the Lord. And so I started writing Bible studies.
Lisa: And so I’ve just done that over the years, but my favorite thing is just to be in Bible study with ladies and hear what God has taught them through their time in study. And then we come together and it’s such a blessing just to be fellowshipping around the word and in prayer with these other ladies. And so I love doing that. I love teaching ladies in conferences or in Bible study.
Lisa: Just recently, my second book came out. I thought it was going to come out way sooner, but in the Lord’s perfect timing. And on a book that’s on unmet expectations, then everything about this book has been different than I thought. And so I had been working on just that topic of unmet expectations for a number of years now. So, finally was able to spend a year or so getting the book written. And then another year with the editing and getting it published—it’s not a fast process.
Lisa: And then one of the things that happened to kind of in this can even lead us into our conversation about unmet expectations is my book came out and I’m so thrilled with how the cover turned out and everything was really cool. And so I had a few copies that I was getting ready to send out to people who had endorsed it. And I’m on the phone talking with my dad, and I got these books on a stack on the counter.
Lisa: And as I’m talking to him, I notice, or it seems like I’m noticing that on the book spine, it doesn’t say “unmet expectations,” which is the book’s title. It says “unmet expectatons.” It’s like, and everything, my heart is kind of sank, and I thought, I’m just going to keep talking to my dad. I’m not going to say anything right now because I’m probably not reading it right. Sure enough. I got off the phone with my dad, I read it three more times, and it still said “unmet expectatons” every time.
Christi: Oh, I know. No kidding.
Lisa: And so then it was just my heart did sink, because I love spelling and I think, no, like it needs to be right. And I was an English teacher and all this stuff, you know. And so then, you know, this feeling embarrassed and kind of like, “huh,” and all of that happened within, you know, a few minutes. And then I just thought, “Lord, you’ve allowed this, you’ve given this to me. So how am I going to respond? That’s what the book’s about. This isn’t what I expected. And you’ve allowed it, Lord, for my good, for Your glory. So now, how do I need to think?”
Lisa: And I just had to go back to everything. I read the book and I started at the very beginning of just going through what I knew I needed to think about. First of all, just gratitude for the Lord’s kindness and wisdom in just allowing things in our lives that are hard because it drives us to him. Then I had to, you know, that was helpful, but I was like, this is still not enough for my heart right now. Lord, I need to go back to survival mode thinking and and just the bottom line I need to think to get over this because this is a big one.
Lisa: And so kind of going through those things, and I review those in the book. And so I just kind of went through a few things. And so that by the time I’d worked through it, and it took a little while, like half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, and that took this initial sting out for my heart so that I was able to not cry when I told, you know, like I that I called our kids and told them. And I was able to not cry.
Lisa: But, you know, all of those things is just good for me and even just for me to be able to laugh about it. But now, one of the things that is part of that is I’ve so grown to love my “unmet expectatons” that’s on the spine of the book because it’s a visual picture that life just doesn’t turn out the way that we think it’s going to because God has something different for us that we never would have imagined.
Christi: Thank you for sharing that. I have my copy on my desk. I didn’t even notice that. I’m looking at it like, I guess it does. But you see it. Yeah, and when you consider everybody was careful, no one was—no one failed. It was the Lord. Yeah.
Christi: Well, that is so apropos to the discussion today, and I just really appreciate you sharing that with us and the listeners. So anyone else notices that, then I’m sure they’ll give a lot of grace if they get one of those misprint books.
Christi: Yeah. Well, you know, it’s funny. I heard you interviewed on the Women’s Hope Podcast about your book. And that’s when I when I saw that title, Unmet Expectations—I’m like, oh, that is gold. That’s, that’s something that needs to be talked about here on the Smiling at the Future Podcast. Most of the listeners of my podcast are single ladies. And so I think that topic in particular, really hits home with so many women because, especially for myself or others that are in their 30s, you know, we had a different idea of where we would be or what our life would look like at this point, you know, maybe expecting to be married for quite some time by now and maybe with five kids or whatever the case is.
Christi: So with that, I’m going to launch into our first question today. Because expectations, we can’t completely get rid of those. It’s good and natural to have expectations for our life. We are told to be wise stewards, to make plans and goals. But when do we know when our expectations are becoming dangerous or verging into even being sinful?
Lisa: Yeah, and I like how you put “when they become dangerous” and that is true. And I think that’s actually a really important question. And it’s similar to—and it’s kind of the same question—about when does a temptation become sin, you know? And I think the answer is the same there. Like from the outside, no one may never know when, like looking at our lives, we’re not necessarily going to know. And oftentimes we don’t necessarily know until it ends up with this sinful response.
Lisa: You know, we oftentimes don’t realize where that tipping point is until it has crossed over. But I think the more that we kind of train ourselves to look for those sinful responses or to watch for when does it tip, then the Lord helps us to see that. I think that’s what 1st Corinthians 10:13 is all about, is looking for that way of escape. And so we can train our hearts to actually look for the way of escape from the Lord, so that when we’re tempted, or when we have these unmet expectations that at what point does it become a sin to me or an idol or dangerous, like you say, then we can begin to see, “oh, there, there it is. Here is here’s the door.”
Lisa: And then oftentimes we see that door and the door is open, and we walk right through it because we want our flesh desires to give way to that, to enter into that, or whatever it is. And that’s what we see with temptation to sin and in entering into sin. It’s the same thing with unmet expectations. I think it’s a lot more subtle because they are, they can be things that are lovely and good. God gives us desires to be wives and moms. He’s told us, you know, those are good and lovely things, and to excel at things, to be faithful.
Lisa: But then, there are times when it becomes an unmet expectation, and it it can become have a grip on our hearts to the place where that’s the only thing that we become a little bit like Rachel when she told Jacob, “Give me children or I will die.” And we get that like, “this has got to happen,” and we become that way with things in our hearts really easily. So I think when we find that we just can’t imagine, like, “well, I’ve just got to have this or I need to do this or I can’t be happy.” The kind of I talk in the book a little bit about the “if only” refrain of our hearts.
Lisa: And you know, “If only my life would be different, then I could and I would be,” and all of those kinds of things. And our “if only” refrain changes all the time. I don’t know about you, mine does. You know, today, my “if only” would be, you know, this, this, and this. And then, and then when those things—sometimes my “if onlys” come to pass, and it’s great, and then I move on to my next “if only.” I mean, my heart is so fickle about the things that I think “this is going to be fully satisfying, I’m going to love this.” And then I receive it from the Lord, and he’s so gracious to do it, and then I just move on to the next thing. “Well, Lord, now that I’ve received this, then I want this next thing.” So, yeah, those it’s really interesting, isn’t it, that unmet expectations and the dangers that they can pose to our hearts? So, yeah.
Christi: And one thing I’ve been thinking about this week, understanding the difference between discontentment and dissatisfaction. And it was actually, this was brought out on an earlier episode by someone I interviewed about how dissatisfaction can lead to good change, you know, healthier habits, you know, if you need a better job. And so, that can have a positive reflection in your life, but how discontentment is negative, and it affects your heart in a sinful way.
Lisa: Absolutely. Yeah. We kind of label it like that. There’s a holy discontentment. And a lot of times, you know, because we’ve been in the ministry a long time that we’ve have had guys who worked with us and who have been on the, you know, pastoral staff with my husband, and you can kind of see a holy discontentment rising up in them. They love what their ministry, but they want to maybe go on to be a senior pastor or whatever, and you can see that building, which is God’s—God has placed it in them to move them on.
Lisa: And I think that is true for every believer that God gives us a holy discontentment for certain things because he’s leading us into a new area of life, ministry, you know, job, whatever, to pursue something that God desires to put, you know, put in our hearts or place in our lives. But the discontentment when it becomes—basically, a holy discontentment, there’s not going to be sin equated with it. My discontentment, my dissatisfaction shows up in that long list of kind of just the bad responses, the naughty responses. I was like, “Lord, this is wrong,” you know? Do I have this sense of entitlement or the sense that I need to be first, or whatever, you know, that those things are not honoring to the Lord?
Christi: Yeah. Yeah. And you can just pray to that. God would make it clear if this is from him, if whatever holy discontentment, if you are trying to parse through your motives and wondering, is this from the Lord? Is this? Do I just need to work on contentment where the Lord has me, or is he preparing me for something different? So praying a lot about asking God to make it clear.
Christi: I feel like I’m having—I don’t know if this would be qualified as a holy discontent—but I live in California and so the desire to move to another state has been growing very strong as I experience travel and see the other states and see the freedoms and the cost of living and gas prices.
Lisa: And well, I can always come to Kentucky.
Christi: Yeah. So sometimes we have expectations for other people—so family members, friends, coworkers, maybe. Is it ever right to voice those expectations, or should we just keep those to ourselves?
Lisa: I love that. Yeah, yeah. That’s like, it kind of depends, doesn’t it? And, you know, that’s one of those, “Should I be quiet and never say anything about sin?” And actually, my my own, like, personality tends to be, “I’m just going to wait, I’m not going to say anything.” That is my preference because partly, because I think there’s huge fear of man, I’m a peacemaker, you know? I don’t want to bring up anything that might be uncomfortable or whatever.
Lisa: And then, you know, then I have other people, like in our family or other friends, who are just like, “Here it is. Let me tell you all about it.” And, you know, and so we have these kinds of responses. But really, I think it whether or not we should say something or not, we need to seek the Lord first. And I have a framework that I had worked through on that where I’m considering, “Is this just me because really I just want you to know that I don’t really like this?” Or, “Is it me because I think this is going to be helpful for you and you need to know it so that you can grow more in Christ? And I believe that biblically this is what the scriptures say.”
Lisa: And so I definitely don’t trust my own heart motivation. You know, there are times when our hormones hormones are higher, and so that makes everything like, I don’t know about you, but when when my hormones are changing and fluctuating, then it seems like everybody needs to know something about my expectations. So definitely, when the, you know, when I was going through a lot of those kinds of things, and I just grew to distrust the things that my heart a little bit more. And I would recognize, “You know, I think I’m just going to pray about this for three days and see if this urgency I need to express myself is still there.”
Lisa: And oftentimes, it wasn’t even a thing. And I realized that at that point, it was just my own heart desiring to give vent because my heart is selfish, and I wanted to just, you know, let somebody else know about my little selfish preferences. And so I think that was definitely something that I’ve kind of learned over the years, but it’s not that it’s inappropriate ever to talk with people. I think we need to be able to do that, but for my own heart, I would just say that I tend to pray about it a few days before I bring it up, and and even more than a few days sometimes, just to see, is this going to be loving this person in the best possible way that I can?
Lisa: We do have expectations for each other. Absolutely. And it’s not bad to have expectations. And depending on the situation. So, definitely, I think there’s some ways that we can do that, the easy way. And sometimes there’s the bigger things. And if we are interacting with people, we’re going to have expectations and our feelings are going to get hurt, and then it’s okay. So, how can I respond well when my feelings are hurt? “I thought this was going to happen. I thought they were going to respond this way, and now they’re not.”
Lisa: And then so, you know, a classic one for me is even just like my husband and I, and I talked about this a little bit in the book, you know, like where I just assumed, “Well, he’s going to know that the best way to go on our errands is the way that I have plotted out.” And then he does his own thing, and so, because he’s got a plan. And so then, how am I going to respond in that situation? He’s driving a completely different way. It’s backwards. It’s not as efficient or whatever that I think it is.
Lisa: And then, now is that going to affect how I interact with him the rest of the day? Am I going to be pouting because he didn’t meet up to my expectations? Or am I going to, you know, how am I going to respond? Am I going to just trust the Lord and just realize, this isn’t a big deal. It’s okay if he has a whole different way, even if it’s not as efficient or whatever.
Christi: Yeah, and I loved how you brought out about first thinking about, is this for the good of the other person and is it not just my own selfishness that is being trampled on here.
Lisa: Yeah. And you know, in any relationship when we have expectations and we let somebody know about them, then they are either going to say, “Sure, I would love to do that for you.” And then it’s like, “Well, thank you.” Or they might say, “Sorry.” And then how are we going to respond? Like, the “sure” one, that’s easy. You know, it’s that the “sorry, I’m not going to meet that expectation” or “I can’t meet that expectation” or, you know, whatever their response might be. And so then, how are we going to respond that?
Lisa: And that’s where sometimes we can get into trouble in our relationships with one another. And those sometimes are the littlest things, but they build up this huge wall and there’s bitterness and unforgiveness that happens just because, “Well, you don’t take out the trash, and I expected you to. And now I have to.” Or sometimes it’s just the littlest things that we’re unwilling to just take to the Lord.
Christi: Yeah. We all have expectations for ourselves too, and when we don’t live up to our own standards, that can be pretty devastating. So can you speak to that? And if someone is in that place of they’re disappointed in themselves.
Lisa: Yes. Yes, all the time. I can speak to it from my own heart. But yeah, definitely. And I spend a lot of time a couple of book chapters in the book about this very topic because I think it is extensive and I think it’s something that we deal with, and we deal with it as women. I think it’s true of men, but we hear it in our relationships and our discipleship relationships. And, you know, I think the thing that is hard about when we are disappointed with ourselves is that then we tend to stall out and we don’t move forward.
Lisa: And so, it’s like, “I never thought that I would sin in this way. I never thought I would be struggling with this thing, or I never thought I would fail to honor the Lord in this way.” And I’m so disappointed in then myself, and God must be so disappointed in me. And there we are, and we just stay there and we don’t apply the truths of the scriptures to then move forward.
Lisa: And, you know, one of the big things that I kind of pull out in our study, in the in the book, is just that God always intends to use us on the other side of our failure. We look extensively at Peter. And of course, he’s the perfect example of someone that God used on the other side of his failure and his sin. And, and I think, you know, we can see that for Peter. It’s so easy to see it on Peter. But for, for us, it takes a huge amount of courage, I think, of faith in the Lord to begin to apply God’s word when we are feeling disappointed and discouraged over our failures and sins.
Lisa: It’s like, “Lord, I blew it again. And here I am again. I mean, how can you forgive me? How can I?” And really, all of that is, is saying is, you know, “I think that Jesus’ work isn’t enough.” We’re discounting all that Christ has done for us. We’re really not believing by faith what God has said in his word. Even though most basic of things, like, you know, as brand new believers, we all learn First John 1:9, that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Lisa: But in the Christian life, First John 1:9 is huge for all of our life. And when we are disappointed with ourselves because of an area, and maybe just because we’re not meeting up to our expectations, we can just kind of not not focus on or pay attention to First John 1:9 and believe that God has cleansed us, that we are right before the Lord, that we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness and move forward.
Lisa: And it’s that moving forward is like having your feet stuck in concrete, so hard. So, you know, dwelling on ourselves for too long can lead to that stalling out. God tells us we need to assess ourselves, like 2nd Corinthians 13:5, to examine ourselves to see if we’re in the faith, how are we doing? But then examine, but examine to move on, not examine to wallow. And for a wallower, you know, I can say it’s so easy for me to wallow. And for anybody who is a wallower, we love wallowing.
Lisa: There’s just, I like, I love this place of wallowing, I’m comfortable here. And so living by faith says, “Will you even consider living in a different way? Will you consider living in a fresh way, in a new way that God has placed in his word?”
Christi: Wow, that is so filled with hope. And I’m a fellow wallower as well. High five. We’ve talked, I’ve talked about that before on the podcast, just that unhealthy level of introspection that we can get stuck in and focusing on all the failures and insecurities and the sins. And and it is true. Like you said, it just keeps you in this place of not being fruitful for the Lord and not being able to serve well if you’re just so inward focused. So you have to pry your eyes to Jesus and look to him, look to what he’s done, and try and understand how he views you. I mean, you know, with Christ’s righteousness, and those sins he died for, he paid for, and he doesn’t bring those to mind.
Christi: Okay. So, as I mentioned, a lot of the people listening to this are single. And so our next question kind of deals with that a little bit. But you mentioned in your book, the idea of a soulmate and that many people believe there is a perfect counterpart or match for them, someone who will just completely get them and their personality. While we do believe that God delights in giving good gifts to his children, can you share what a more realistic expectation should be for women that are looking forward to a future husband?
Lisa: Yes. I have a chapter in the book that’s called “Soulmates and Other Myths.” So I think that kind of let you know where I’m thinking about that. But I love the idea of a soulmate. Like, I think there’s something in all of us that is our little, I don’t know, Cinderella hearts or something that’s like, “Oh, you know, if only there would be somebody.” But there’s not anything that we see in the scriptures that tells us that. And what we do see even more is that God wants us to love others, to seek their best, to do nothing from selfishness, you know, to to die to ourselves.
Lisa: And, you know, we want someone who understands us, who listens to us, who wants all the things that we want. And so we’re just doing this stuff, you know. It’s like that sounds so great. But God knows something better for us, which is that not everybody’s going to get us. He is so kind to give us friends who do get us. I think it’s so wonderful and kind of him that he places us in families or gives us friends or was even a spouse who it’s easy to live with them.
Lisa: But not every relationship is. And even those who are married know that even the most sympathetic of relationships still aren’t always that way. And yet we can kind of looking at other people’s relationships, even married, you know, people in married relationships, they can look at other people’s marriages and think, “Oh, they’re so in tune with each other.” And that’s what we long for. And yet, if you talk to them, there’s like, “No, that’s actually, it was, it’s just what it looks like.”
Lisa: And there’s first of all, we have to deal with that, that false concept of what someone’s life looks like versus reality. But then we also have just the whole idea of what God intends in our relationships, and to expect that one person would be our everything is a huge burden. I don’t know what it would be like for you, but I have all these ideas. And if any one person was meant to carry that weight of all my thoughts and ideas, and “this is what I need,” then, I mean, they would just be bent over all the time.
Lisa: But there is one person that God has created to be our everything and the fulfillment of our souls, and that is Jesus Christ. You know, he he is the one who has to satisfy our souls. And so God allows dissatisfaction and our relationships to drive us to him. We if everything was met in our relationships, we wouldn’t seek the Lord out. So that’s the whole idea of a soulmate is lovely, but if we had that person who was our everything, then Jesus wouldn’t be our everything.
Lisa: It’s never been good for us to get everything we desired. Our greatest desires need to be summed up in Christ. And even the things that even when we’re seeking the Lord, he doesn’t give us all the stuff that we’re longing for. That’s why I had to write a book, you know? It’s like, I need to get my heart right so that I’m longing for that day when I see the Lord Jesus in person. And it’s at that point that all my longings, all my hopes, all my desires are fulfilled.
Lisa: But it won’t be until then. And for now, the Lord is going to be the one who’s going to meet with me through his word. He’s going to give me his encouragement in the scriptures. He’s going to give me encouragement in my relationships with a variety of people. I think it’s just so kind of the Lord that he gives us so many different relationships that help us so that when we take the big picture, we kind of have a picture of all these people who are ministering to our hearts. But that’s from the Lord. So yeah, that was the idea of any one person. Oh my, yeah.
Christi: And yeah, I think singles can have maybe an unrealistic view of that looking for this perfect match. But so this is this is a follow-up question that is spur of the moment here, but what should a woman look for then if she’s not looking for a perfect match in somebody, but, you know, you want to find someone that you you mesh well with, you actually maybe enjoy. I mean, there’s certain things that are that are helpful to be looking for in a future spouse. So, do you have any just off the cuff things you would share with the listeners in that category?
Lisa: Well, it just before I do, I’ll have to tell you that our so, our two sons who are in their—one son just turned 28, and the other one is 30, and they’re not married. And so their young son was telling me, “Yeah, Mom, it’s kind of like, sometimes you feel like women are looking for someone who’s like Jesus only taller.” And that’s, I feel like that’s such a perfect representation of even unmet expectations. The things that we want, like, “Well, I wanted to be just like Jesus, but taller.” And so even Jesus isn’t enough to our expectations, which just shows how fickle our hearts are. Yeah.
Lisa: So then when we’re looking for for someone and all those qualifications, and there are certain things that we definitely want. We want, we want to find someone who loves the Lord, but even that, that expression of him seeking the Lord and what that’s going to look like, you know, those are those are fleshed out differently in each person. So, you know, it’s even hard to to quantify that. But when we’re looking for that, when someone whose heart is the Lord’s, you know it. And when they love the Lord Jesus and they want to spend time with him every day, you know it. You can see that in them. And, you know, you want to you do want to like them.
Lisa: A huge stumbling block for me before I became a Christian, in fact, it was one of the reasons why I delayed actually becoming a Christian was because I was afraid that if I followed the Lord, I would have to marry this really nerdy guy with it. You know, who wore pocket protectors, to get on pen in his pockets, and wore his hair all combed over. Of course, this was in the 70s when everybody had long flowing hair. And but it was still, I was afraid that if I followed the Lord, I would have to marry a nerd. And then I would have to like him.
Lisa: And it was such an encouragement for me to learn, actually, and the Lord was kind that I got past that before I even got married, and that I didn’t delay in coming to know the Lord, and he was so kind to rescue me from myself. But just to learn that God prepares our hearts. And so we do want to like the person that we spend time with. Now, are we going to like every little bit of them? Well, no, because they’re not perfect. And so there are going to be things that you would prefer that they were different about. And people change, people grow.
Lisa: So the person that you marry isn’t going to be the person that you are going to be married to, you know, 5, 10, you know, 30 and we’ve been married 38 years down the road, and we’re just not the same, praise the Lord. But eventually, you know, as we continue to grow in Christ, we all should look like Jesus and be more like him. But there are still parts of the things that we do, like, “Well, I don’t really prefer that.” I mean, just like we don’t prefer to eat a certain vegetable.
Christi: Thank you for shedding some light on that question because it’s, yeah, just something, yeah, it’s a big one. Yes. So our next question here, this is just a very practical, how-to question, but when you are experiencing a disappointment of some kind, what are the practical steps you take to go down the right and God-honoring path in your thinking?
Lisa: Hmm. I think that the first thing is just remembering that the Lord has given it. Trusting and the more we know of God’s sovereignty, power, wisdom, might, overall events. And then if I’m experiencing something, it’s because God has given it. So first of all, I need to get in line with what God has given.
Lisa: And one of my favorite verses for a number of years now has been 1st Samuel 3:18. It’s when Eli, after being told about God’s judgment that was going to be coming down on him and his sons because of their unfaithfulness, and he responded, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.” And that response of humility and submission to God’s plan just helps my heart so much with, “Okay, first, I just need to remember. This is the Lord, it is Lord.”
Lisa: And then, and then it reminds me, “Let him do what seems good to him.” If God is doing this, then it’s going to be good. He’s wise, and so I want to get in line with that. I do not want to be found fighting against the Lord. We often talk about, even in prayer, you know, I will, I just want to throw my stick into the stream of God’s Providence when it comes to praying for things. You know, I want to be found praying for the things that God loves. And and when God is working out details in my life, then it’s the same way. I want to jump into that stream because this is the stream that God has given me. So that’s my first one.
Lisa: And then I do in the book. I do talk about building a foundation of right thinking and kind of the survival mode. Like, what’s the bottom line? I use that a lot in my life to counsel my own heart of just, what’s the bottom line that I need to think about this? Especially when we’re struggling and it’s hard and our emotions are high. Then I need to go to like, what’s the basic, the most crucial thing for me to think on. And, you know, so, I start with the basics of that.
Lisa: And so when I’m counseling myself, then I’m going to go back to, “All right, what’s the bottom line here in this scenario, in this situation, that I need to know and think about that will help get my heart in line with what God is doing.” And in the book, I talk about that for me. The first thing is just recognizing that I’m a sinner, and I am not receiving what I deserve. If I was receiving everything I would deserve, I mean, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. The Lord would have already taken me away. And yet, here I am.
Lisa: So, and, you know, it removes that sense of entitlement that we deserve something better. And I don’t know what it’s like for everyone else, but I know for me that that is a huge issue. Just that sense of, “Well, I I think I, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been trying to do what’s right, Lord, and so, shouldn’t this be different?” And there’s that sense of entitlement. And and then even just the idea that my trials are fewer than my sins, which is not original with me. It was coined by one of the Puritans, but I love it because it just reminds us that, you know, the Lord, again, is dealing with us faithfully. He’s dealing with us graciously.
Lisa: And, you know, when life is hard and different than I need to be reminded of that because I need to get my heart in line. And then just line myself up with God’s sovereignty that if I am experiencing unmet expectations, or difficulties, or trials, or delays, anything, it’s because God has judged it, he’s deemed it good, and that’s like 1st Samuel 3:18. And then just being reminded the Lord’s never going to disappoint me. I may be disappointed in my in what’s happening right now, but the Lord will not disappoint me. And just those those things, those bottom-line, kinds of things are really encouraging to me.
Lisa: Even if I’m not thinking on those things, I’m going to be looking for what what do I need to think in this situation that is going to be the foundation and just remember the Lord’s never going to leave me or forsake me. So I might be struggling, but the Lord’s with me, he’s going to help me. He promises he’s going to stay with me. Just it’s just reminding myself of those truths. And, you know, sometimes we discount those things as being a little simple, but they’re not. They are huge that the God of the universe is always with us. He’s going to help us. He will never forsake us. I mean, what an encouragement is that?
Christi: Yeah, and if someone struggles with, you know, understanding that power that the Lord has and his magnificence and what a sweet promise that is, just go outside and look at the stars some night or do a study on astronomy and study how vast and and large our universe is.
Christi: So our next question here. For some women, singleness can feel like compounded unmet expectations. You face letting go of the expectations of having a husband, having children, fitting in with your peers and where they are in life, if they’re married and have children, and even the possibility of not working some day. What should you do when all of that feels overwhelming and hopeless?
Lisa: I love this, and I do agree that singleness does add layers of unmet expectations. And and I like that list that you put together there because there are so many aspects of it. It’s not like, “I’m just single,” but it’s, “No, it’s this thing and this thing,” and all these parts of that that we have expectations, or hopes, or desires that will, you know, that’ll all kind of come together.
Lisa: But when it comes to just feeling overwhelmed and hopeless in our situation, and this is across the board in any scenario that we find in our lives, is just, “Okay. So what do I need to go back to of? What do I know about the Lord himself?” It always boils down to, in all of life situations, of, “Can I trust the Lord? Is he wise? Is he good? Is he powerful? Is he going to bring all of these things in my life for my good, for his glory? Can I trust his purposes? Can I trust his plans?”
Lisa: And the better that we know him and his character, and the better that we can bear some of these sorrows and disappointments and and delays for some of those things so that we can say, just like, “Though he slay me, yet, I will trust him.” Is that trust that’s put on display by knowing the Lord? But, you know, when we’re overwhelmed and feeling hopeless, and it really just goes back to, “Okay, I just need to do, spend some time looking in the scriptures, reminding myself of what is true of God, taking my taking all of these things to him.”
Lisa: And there’s a poem that Fanny Crosby wrote and is called “For What His Love Denies.” And I put it in the book and it’s I love the refrain in the poem because she kind of all the way through the poem. She’s talking about all these different things that she had longed for that, either God did supply or he doesn’t supply, but then she begins to see how even in the ways when he doesn’t supply, he supplies something in a different way or in a different form. And the refrain is, “And so I thank Him from my heart for what His love denies.”
Lisa: And when we are feeling hopeless or overwhelmed by our unmet expectations, especially in the area of singleness, I mean, there’s some deep deep sorrows and disappointments there. But we have to get to the place where we can just say, “Lord, you know what is best. And I want to thank you from my heart for what your love for me has denied.” Now, that it may not be a denial for all of life. It may be just a denial for this time and for this season. But it’s that sweetness of spirit that says that, that humility that bows down underneath what God is giving in our lives. And I just love how Fanny Crosby has pulled all that together.
Lisa: You know, we have that hopelessness that comes from, “When I’ve prayed about this, I’ve prayed about this my whole life, I’ve asked the Lord.” And and there can be such a deep disappointment because it’s like, “Well, Lord, you do this for everyone else. How come you haven’t done it for me? What’s wrong with me?” To give up even some of those long-held, cherished hopes and dreams can really be just rending to our souls.
Lisa: But if we want to move move out of that place of sorrow and despair to to get to the place of even contentment, while still hoping, that we can be even continuing to hope, continuing to pray, but not being in a place of despair. Then we have to shift our focus and we it has to be, “Lord, for today, you have not given me these things. But what do I know you have given me? You have given me a grace that is sufficient.”
Lisa: So, for today, you have given me everything I need. Your grace is sufficient for me today. And so in this moment, for this minute, I’m going to live upon your grace. And then in the next minute, I’m going to live upon your grace. By the end of the day, I’ve lived upon the grace of God in my sorrow and my disappointment and my grief. And I’m able to move forward.
Lisa: And I think as we continue to live upon the grace of God day after day in trusting, all of those things, then we don’t lose heart or not weary in the life that God has allowed us to live. We have to consider if we’re losing heart and we’re just like, “What’s the use, and God’s given up on me,” or he’s not, you know, “my life is just not what I expected.” If we lose heart, what does that say about us, about our faith, and about the God that we believe in?
Lisa: And, you know, you talked earlier about, you know, this is the only bad that we’re ever going to face is right now. And and so for a lot of us, whether it’s in as a single or even in the some of the marriage relationship or as a parent, there are some really deep hard things that can tempt us to to lose heart. And yet God does not want us to lose heart. He wants us to live with faith in the midst.
Lisa: That’s one of my favorite verses to apply in this situation for myself and just even in counseling is Psalm 16 in verses 5 and 6. And David was kind of counseling his own heart in that scenario. He was it was in the middle of a situation. He had all kind of enemies coming against him. He was facing persecution and trouble and distress. And yet he says, in verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 16, “The Lord is my portion of my inheritance and my cup. You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.”
Lisa: And when we’re in a place where life is just different than we thought it was going to be and we’re struggling, then reorienting our thinking, changing the focus to the Lord and recognizing, “Lord, you are my portion, you’re my inheritance, and you support my life.” So, “Lord, You’re supporting my situation right now. You’re holding me up in it and this is where you apply me.” And then David says, and, you know, he’s using the language of the land inheritance, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.”
Lisa: And so you can kind of imagine just living in a fenced-in yard and it’s like, “Well, I don’t want to live in this yard. I want to live in that yard.” And yet David says, “No, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.” So it’s like he’s looking at the fence that God has placed around him and he’s called he’s saying, “Lord, this is a pleasant place, and in fact, Lord, my heritage is beautiful to me because you have given it.” And so that’s the that reorienting of our thinking that just looks at the place that God has placed us.
Lisa: And though the Lord knows we’d rather live in this other fenced-in yard over here, he’s got us in this one. And so it helps us to be glad to say, “Lord, You’re my portion, you’re going to be enough for me, and help me to live well. You support me in this fenced-in place.” It’s just, it just gives people stout hearts, you know?
Christi: Yeah. I feel like so much of these types of situations or these trials come down to us waiting on the Lord and trusting his timing. And that is very characteristic for how the Lord works. And that’s one of the hardest tests of faith is when we have to wait and wait and patiently wait and things are not on our timelines and we wonder if God has forgotten or if we are forgotten. But a delay is not a denial. And we’ve talked about that before on the podcast. So I’m not giving up hope that just the Lord’s time has a different time table. So, yeah.
Lisa: Absolutely. Yes. Waiting is one of those as my husband calls them, the passive graces, but they’re waiting requires courage, it requires faith to a degree that oftentimes action does not require of us. It It takes more trust to wait well than it does to, like, “Well, I’m just going to, you know, get out here and…” To to wait well with joy, to wait well with hope.
Lisa: You know, in Romans 4, and Abraham is reference when Paul’s talking about Abraham, and he says, “In hope against hope Abraham believed and that was reckoned to him as righteousness.” And then it just goes on to when Paul’s talking about the ways that Abraham hoped and he continued to hope. The longer he had to wait for God’s promises, the stronger his faith grew. And he didn’t even waver in that. Well, that takes a huge amount of just trust. “I’m going to trust you, Lord, no matter what,” a commitment to trust.
Lisa: And so when we’re waiting and that and we commit ourselves to, “I will wait for you, Lord.” And people are coming at us and they’re saying, “Well, you just, and you should just,” and all that, you know, all those things in our own hearts are saying, “Well, you should just,” and we want to come up with our own plan for rescuing ourselves. And we say, “No, I have committed to wait upon the Lord, to trust in his timing. I’m not going to move ahead of him,” and whatever the circumstance is, that takes faith. It takes trust, it takes courage, it takes hope. Those are all just those passive graces that the Lord builds in us through waiting, and it’s really lovely. And you can see it in all tested souls, the ones that wait well, and there’s just a hopefulness in them.
Christi: Yeah, and that’s that, you can just know that that’s the Lord working that in you because you would think that having to wait a long time would not produce hope, that that would be the opposite. You would lose heart if you’re waiting and not seeing any answer. And so the Lord, if you’re able to wait well and your hope is building, then that is the Lord doing that work in your heart. So that’s encouraging.
Christi: So, for our final question today, the promises of God. Those are just beautiful, helpful for us to hang on to in those seasons of waiting as well. Are there promises that you have just enjoyed meditating on in times of waiting?
Lisa: Yes, absolutely. Psalm 27, verses 13 through 14. I’ve lived on for years, and and I love the promises that are contained there. But David just says, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” And then he counsels himself, “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord.”
Lisa: And, and Psalm 27, thus the whole psalm, it’s worth memorizing, but in verses 13 and 14, just David just reminding us, “I would have despaired. I would have.” And so, you know, if we find ourselves even despairing, it’s like, “Well, then what do I need to do?” Because David says, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” And it’s not, it’s that faith that God’s going to still bring good now. I mean, we don’t have to wait for heaven because God does good to us today. He is. And that kind of goes back to just the the mercies that we see in our lives and cultivating thankfulness, but but just looking for the goodness of the Lord today. Otherwise, if we don’t look for that, we are going to despair.
Lisa: And then just that council of waiting for the Lord and being strong. “Let your heart take courage and wait for the Lord.” That’s definitely, it’s my one of my go-to verses. So of living upon I live upon Hebrews 13:5 and 6 of just where the Lord himself reminds us that if we want to have contentment and trust and hope is to remember that he himself has said, “I will never desert you. I will never forsake you.”
Lisa: And then we can confidently say, no matter what our situation, “The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” And for someone who is a fraidy-cat, I’m just, you know, constantly dealing with fear. Then this is a huge verse. These verses, these promises are huge for me because then I can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid.” He’s my helper. He’s not, he’s not going to forsake me. He’s going to be with me. And so what can man do to me? Nothing. Man can’t do anything to me that God has not allowed. And even if he allows something, he’s going to still be with me in it.
Lisa: And so, you know, that living upon those promises. 2nd Corinthians 12:9 and 10, I referenced it earlier, but just the Lord’s promise, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” And, you know, Paul just responding, “Well, then, of course, I would rather boast about my weaknesses.” “I want the power of Christ to be evident in me, to dwell in me.” And I love how Paul says, “Well, then I’m going to be well content with weaknesses.” And it’s like, “Well, how many of us are really content with our weaknesses?”
Lisa: And yet, Paul says that he will be content with his weakness, with his with insults, with distresses. I mean, how often do we get to the end of our day and think, “Well, that was a bummer. It was so hard. It was full of distresses all day long.” And yet Paul says, “No, I’m going to be content with my distressing days, with the things that are hard for me because when I am weak, then I am strong because of the grace of God that is at work in me.” And God’s grace is sufficient for us to live through the difficulties of life. Those promises are just precious, are life-changing for us. I have a whole bunch more, but you know, that’s plenty.
Christi: Everybody has their own. It just makes me think of Pilgrim’s Progress when Pilgrim, you know, he had been captured by Giant Despair and was locked up in Doubting Castle. And what got him out was the promise of God, you know, the key of Promise and how that will definitely free us from fear, and from doubting, and from despair.
Christi: So, yeah, thank you for sharing those, Lisa. And I would just encourage the listeners—I’ll link her book in the show notes—but encourage you all to pick up a copy. I think it would be really a great book to do with somebody else or as a book study because each chapter, there are some discussion questions that you can go over and just reflect on and apply to your own heart as you’re working through the book. But it’s an excellent book. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was convicting and uplifting at the same time.
Christi: So, thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing your heart and your wisdom with me and with the listeners, and I’m excited to hear how God is going to use this for His glory.
Lisa: Thank you so much, and thanks for making it so painless.
Christi: You’re very welcome.