When God Doesn’t Deliver, Part 1

I’m a type-A perfectionist. As such, one of my biggest strengths is what some might call optimism and what others might call idealism. It’s also my true Achilles heel when this optimism is disappointed and these ideals aren’t met.

I aim my expectations at star-level and struggle to pick up the pieces when, after a rough landing, they look up from the dust of my next-door neighbor’s backyard.  

A church friend and I recently had a conversation about this very thing, commiserating over our common frustrations when things don’t go the way we expect. The tangled emotions we feel when Plan A turns into Plan B or Plan C or Plan Z, even when the change is better and we know it’s better. The humor of encouraging others to be flexible while we ourselves privately remain as flexible as an old 2×4.

Can you relate? Whether you’re a high-strung Type A like me or one of those blessedly laid-back Type Bs, I’m sure we all understand the disappointment of not having our expectations met.

Moses faced this disappointment too, many times. There are two specific incidents from his life I’d like to talk about that impacted me deeply. One comes out of Exodus (see what I did there?), with the other account tucked in between ledgers and censuses in the book of Numbers.  

In both these situations (and others from his life), Moses’ disappointment wasn’t just with errands taking longer than expected or having to creatively re-plan a movie night with a friend. He felt let down by God Himself, sunk into doubt about God’s very promises, left reeling by circumstances and challenges that made him wonder if God was really there.

Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. In chronic illness, we face letdowns all the time. A doctor who doesn’t know what’s going on. A treatment that stops working. A sudden flare-up after weeks of remission. Ongoing, debilitating symptoms that, like a stream curving under a bank, eat away at our body, mind, and soul until we tremble on the brink of utter collapse.

These disappointments tax us not just physically but also spiritually, pulling us into a seeming tug-of-war between God’s promises and our reality, forcing us to confront hard challenges: How do we respond when God’s words and God’s actions don’t line up in our sight? Where do we turn when our hopes—placed in God Himself—are dashed?

What do we do when God doesn’t deliver?

From Bad to Worse

When we’ve grown up reading the Bible and hearing all the stories since pre-K Sunday School, it’s easy to begin reading the story with the end in mind. A few weeks ago, we looked at the story of Joseph this way, seeing how his hardships were necessary to bring him to the growth and blessing God designed.

This time, however, I’d like to do the opposite. Forget the end of the story. Pretend you’ve never heard of Moses. Put yourself in his shoes as he experiences both the humbling awe and the confusing disappointment that often come when God and humanity interact.

First we have to set the stage with the start of the book of Exodus. After Joseph, Jacob’s family multiplied. A lot. Feeling threatened, the Egyptians forced the Israelites into slavery, hard labor designed to break both body and spirit. And when that didn’t succeed, they tried to reduce the population by cruelly killing baby boys.

Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

Exodus 2:23

In the midst of this hardship, with all its resulting squalor and terror, a man gets married and begins a family. (I love the application from this example, but that’s not part of this discussion.) When their third child comes along, somehow his parents know this boy is going to be used by God for some great purpose.

Long story short, this boy gets adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, receives the name of Moses (meaning “drawn out,” because she drew him out of the Nile River), and is raised as an Egyptian prince, possibly as heir to the Egyptian throne.

Eventually, however, in an attempt to fast-forward to his destiny, Moses severs his claim to Egypt’s throne, alienates his own people, and has to flee for his life. He spends the next forty years a couple countries away from Egypt, working as a shepherd in the desert of Midian. (There he also marries and begins a family.)

That’s also where God gets his attention, telling Moses he is God’s chosen man to lead (you could say draw) God’s chosen people out of Egypt and to their promised inheritance in Canaan.

In this encounter, God demonstrates his power through a series of miracles that must have left Moses both shaken and exhilarated. Many times throughout this conversation, God also reiterates with strong promise language that He will bring Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery, and into the land of promise.

It’s gonna be epic.

Moses returns to Egypt and shares these words and works of God with the Israelites. The people respond with overwhelmed gratitude and praise (and probably excitement to see God finally kick the Egyptians’ backside as He frees His people).

So the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Exodus 4:31

No doubt riding this spiritual high, Moses marches into Pharaoh’s throne room to give the message: God says to let His people go.

He has the power of God on his side. He has the experience of his own older brother at his side. He has the promises of God behind him, buoying him with the confidence that God will draw out His people from the sin and slavery of Egypt.

He probably expected Pharaoh to fall down trembling and give orders for every Israelite slave to be released, now.

Instead, Pharaoh pooh-poohed him. Laughed in his face. Didn’t believe him, didn’t believe God, and shut the door in his face.

Moses must have been reeling as he was escorted from the throne room. How could Pharaoh treat so lightly the God who had showed Himself so personally, so powerfully to Moses and his brethren? Didn’t the king know who he was laughing at?

How could this happen? Wasn’t God supposed to free them?

As if rejection wasn’t enough, Pharaoh increased the Israelites’ slave labor and beat the Israelite overseers. Moses’ head was probably still spinning when the people came to him, bitter and furious. “You came to free us,” they said, “but you’ve only given Pharaoh the weapons to kill us. We’re going to die, and it’s your fault. Thanks a lot, Moses. Better yet, thanks a lot to your God who made this all happen!”

Chapter 5 ends with Moses’ appeal to the Ruler of the Universe:

“Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all.”

Exodus 5:22-23

Can you hear the pain and desperation in Moses’ words?

“What’s the point?” he’s asking. “I did what You told me. I came to make things better and just made things worse.” Then, the words that sound very much like an accusation: “neither have You delivered Your people at all.”

“You promised You would free us, God, but You didn’t.”

God had promised to deliver, and God hadn’t delivered.

The Perfect Stage

A new chapter takes the narrative in a new direction. Chapter 6 opens,

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do with Pharaoh.”

Exodus 6:1a

You can almost see God stretching his arms with his fingers joined, cracking his knuckles as he basically tells Moses, “Now I can do what I came here to do.”

Moses thought it was over.

God was just getting started.

I like what Charles R. Swindoll writes in his biography of Moses, titled Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication:

The best framework for the Lord God to do His most ideal work is when things are absolutely impossible and we feel totally unqualified to handle it. That’s His favorite circumstance. Those are His ideal working conditions.

p. 162

I relate a lot to Moses’ disappointment. He came to Egypt expecting a single, big event of deliverance. He wanted deliverance and he wanted it now, and when he didn’t see an instant result, he doubted the purpose of God. He thought God had failed.

Humans, inside time, lack patience. God, outside time, has infinitive patience.

It’s easy for us to give up on God because we think He gives up on us: “Well, you had your chance, God. You said you’d do this, but you haven’t. Guess I’m on my own now.”

But, as Scripture makes clear,

1. God never gives up on His children (Heb. 13:5).
2. God never fails to keep His promise (1 Kings 8:23).
3. God rarely “delivers” the first time or right away (Ro. 11:33).

Throughout the Old and the New Testaments, the mark of God’s people is patience: they stuck with God even when God took forever to follow through on His promise. They were faithful to Him and trusted Him no matter what happened or how long they waited.

(See: Abraham, Joseph, Job, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Paul, John, etc.)

Like so many of us, Moses came into Egypt with expectations of a once-and-done, clean miracle show of deliverance and then on to the next thing. But God had a different design, and Moses had to learn patience and trust as he walked with God through the extended, messy process of plagues and meetings and emotions and divine wars before Pharaoh finally released the people.

Think about the days, the weeks that followed. How much God did. How much Pharaoh and Egypt saw. How much Moses and Israel learned.

Even in our limited human understanding, we can agree the process was better than a “boom” moment of deliverance.

Expectation vs. Reality

What about when it’s our turn to go through the process instead of receive an instant product?

We want God to work and we want Him to work now, once and done, so we can keep moving. But God doesn’t just have a different timetable; He also has a different purpose, a purpose that is accomplished through different means, in different ways, and at a different time from what we expect.

Oswald Chambers wrote in the August 3 entry of My Utmost for His Highest,

God’s aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short-sighted to see what He is aiming at.

When it comes to that tug-of-war between expectation and reality, it’s not God who fails. It’s our expectations—often a product of our own humanity, and not reflective of the static reality that exists outside our expectations—that fail.

If you’re in a Moses season, in the middle of a valley and God doesn’t seem to deliver, hang tight. He is still working.

It’s His job to work according to His wisdom and goodness (Ps. 145:9). It’s our job to mold ourselves to His heart as we walk beside Him on the journey He has mapped out for us (2 Cor. 5:7, 1 Pet. 1:6-7, Ro. 12:2, Heb. 12:1-3)—even if we lose some expectations (and a fair bit of flesh) along the way.

What expectations have been disappointed lately? Where did these expectations come from? What does Scripture say about God’s character and the way He works? How can you take hope in these truths?