Great Expectations: What Happens When God Doesn’t Work the Way You Think He Should

Have you ever been so certain about how something was supposed to go that when it went differently, you didn’t just feel disappointed — you got angry? Not mildly irritated. Furious. Maybe even furious enough to walk away.

That tension sat at the center of a message Carl brought to our congregation this past Sunday from 2 Kings 5 — a message made all the more remarkable by the occasion. February 8, 2026 marked the 50th anniversary of Carl’s baptism. Fifty years of walking with the Lord, and the theme he chose to bring before us wasn’t a victory lap. It was a confession: expectations have haunted him most of his life. And if we’re honest, they haunt most of us too.

A Warrior With a Problem He Couldn’t Fight

Carl opened the story of Naaman by drawing our attention to something easy to miss. Naaman was a decorated military commander, highly respected by the king of Aram — but the text tells us he was valued not for who he was, but for what he had done. The Lord had used him to deliver military victories, victories that came in part as a consequence of Israel’s own disobedience. Naaman was powerful, successful, and admired. He was also a leper. No amount of battlefield courage could fix what was wrong with his body.

There’s something striking about a man who can conquer armies but can’t conquer his own flesh. Carl let that sit with us before moving forward, and it lingered.

An Unnamed Girl With Uncommon Compassion

Into this story walks one of the most overlooked characters in Scripture — a young Israelite girl, ripped from her home by raiding bands, now serving as a slave in Naaman’s household. She had every reason to be bitter. She had no reason to care about her captor’s suffering. And yet she spoke up: “I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Carl paused and asked the congregation a pointed question: Do we have compassion when our expectations in life unfold in ways we don’t want or anticipate? This unnamed girl, in the worst of circumstances, still pointed someone toward the God of Israel. That’s a kind of faith most of us struggle to find on our best days.

The Price Tag We Put on God’s Work

When Naaman heard there might be a cure, he moved fast. He loaded up 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of fine clothing — millions of dollars by today’s standards. Carl, who is a barber by trade, brought the illustration close to home: when someone sits in his chair, they expect a haircut, and his employer expects to be paid. It’s simple commerce. Naaman assumed his healing would work the same way. Big problem, big price.

But God’s economy doesn’t operate on our terms. You can’t buy what God gives freely. That was a thread Carl would pull on for the rest of the morning.

When God Doesn’t Show Up the Way You Expect

Naaman arrived at Elisha’s house with horses and chariots, expecting a dramatic encounter. Instead, Elisha didn’t even come to the door. He sent a messenger with seven words of instruction: go wash in the Jordan seven times.

Naaman erupted. “I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.” Carl zeroed in on those two words — “I thought” — and admitted they’ve been the source of more damage in his own life than he can measure.

He shared a story from just two nights before. His daughter came to him excited to tell a funny story about something that happened at work. A few words in, something triggered him. He assumed he knew where the story was going, and he responded in anger before she ever finished. He broke her heart. She cried. Not because she had done anything wrong, but because she hadn’t handled the situation the way he would have.

“We expect people to think and act like we do,” Carl said. “And praise God we’re not all the same.”

The Hardest Question of the Morning

Carl didn’t let us sit comfortably. He asked us all directly: “When God doesn’t do what you expect and He doesn’t act the way you want Him to — who do you think you are?”

It wasn’t rhetorical. He meant it. And he included himself in the indictment. He talked about the arrogance of demanding things from the God who created us, the God who gave His own Son so that we could be redeemed. He talked about the audacity of telling God how He should work in other people’s lives when we can barely submit to how He’s working in our own.

This was one of those moments in a sermon where the room gets very still. Carl’s transparency — about his anger, his arrogance, his need for forgiveness — gave the rest of us permission to stop pretending we don’t struggle with the same things.

Reluctant Obedience Is Still Obedience

It took Naaman’s own servants to talk him off the ledge. “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much more when he simply says, wash and be clean?” Carl suggested that God sometimes works in unexpectedly simple ways precisely so that we can’t take credit for the outcome. The healing belongs to Him, not to us.

Naaman went down to the Jordan. He dipped seven times. And his flesh was restored like that of a little child. When he returned to Elisha, his confession said it all: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”

Elisha refused the payment. The healing was never transactional. And Naaman left not only with restored skin, but with something far greater — he had experienced a taste of the goodness and power of the living God.

Everything We Need, Already Given

Carl closed by walking through a sweep of Scripture — Micah 6:8, Matthew 22, 1 Peter 1, Ecclesiastes 12, Ephesians 2:10, Luke 9 — laying out what God does expect from us: justice, kindness, humility, love, holiness, obedience, and a willingness to deny ourselves and follow Christ. But he was quick to add that God never asks without providing. Second Peter 1 tells us that His divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness.

“I came to know Jesus more than 50 years ago. Today is the anniversary, to the very day, of my baptism 50 years ago,” Carl said as he neared the end. “God has worked in ways that I never would have expected. He has done exceedingly abundantly beyond what I could ask or think. And none of it went the way I expected.”

Fifty years walking with the Lord. And the man standing before us wasn’t boasting about his faithfulness. He was marveling at God’s. What a powerful testimony!

Questions to Sit With This Week

Where are you placing expectations that belong only on God? Are you looking to people, circumstances, or outcomes to deliver what only He can provide?

How do you respond when God works differently than you expected? Do you rage like Naaman, or do you trust that His ways are higher than yours?

Is there someone in your life you need to ask forgiveness from — because your expectations became demands they were never meant to carry?

Are you reading God’s Word? Carl’s plea was simple and direct: “Please read your Bible.” Not to earn anything, but to know the One who has already given everything.

Fifty years of following Jesus, and Carl’s message wasn’t about arrival. It was about surrender. About managing our expectations around the one true living God and trusting that He will do everything He has promised — in His way, in His time, for His glory.

May we walk humbly with Him. And may we finish well.

Listen to the full sermon here: Great Expectations — Carl — 2 Kings 5

Preached February 8, 2026 at Howell Bible Church