Expecting Penguins

Back in college, ages and ages ago, I made a friend. And as I got to know her, I realized her life was in constant motion. She switched majors, jobs, churches, boyfriends, locations… always thinking that the next change was what was going to make life wonderful. But she was never quite happy. She’d be excited about the change, it would come, and, next thing you know, something better was coming.

I realized something, watching her. She was always expecting life to bring her joy, but she never was looking to God to supply it. So I started praying, for myself, that I would find all my joy in God.

Honestly, I didn’t really like the idea. I don’t know about you, but the image I had of someone who was “finding their joy in God” was that of someone who sort of walked around all day with this beatific smile on their face,  and was just vaguely happy because “God was with them”. This did NOT sound very appealing to me, but I knew I was supposed to “find my joy in God”, so there I was. And something strange happened. I didn’t suddenly become this uber-spiritual person who constantly felt the presence of God. What happened was that suddenly I was happy with what I had had all along—my job, the view on my drive to work, my neighborhood. 

As I thought about it, I realized what had happened. Because I was expecting God to be my joy (however that would look),  I had stopped expecting joy from specific things—events that often turned out differently, people who were ultimately disappointing. And because I wasn’t focusing on one specific thing that I thought would make me happy, God was able to use the things that He wanted to give me joy—things that were there all along, that I just hadn’t seen because I was so focused on what I expected to make me happy. 

It’s rather like a little kid who goes to the zoo specifically to see the penguins and, when the penguins don’t act like the ones in Madagascar, pitches such a fit that he can’t be consoled by anything. At that point, it doesn’t matter to him that he can pet a zebra, feed the giraffes, or talk to a dolphin. He never even saw the tigers on the way to the penguin enclosure. If he’d simply been expecting the zoo to be fantastic, everything would have been exciting. 

            Even now, all too often, I focus on penguins. I expect to start “happily ever after” at a wedding or party; I expect to be a success on a project at work; I expect to find a new best friend every time I go somewhere new. And when my expectations aren’t fulfilled, I’m vaguely grumpy about it. Sometimes, I don’t even realize that I’ve had expectations. But in retrospect, I wonder how many things God tried to show me that I refused to see because I knew what would bring me joy. And really, how stupid is that? To think that I know better than God what will make me happy? After all, it is His “good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32 

The kingdom… and I’m clutching at a shiny penny.