When Jesus Zags Instead of Zigs

When Jesus Zags Instead of Zigs
What do we do when Jesus isn’t following the script we expected?  

My son has taken up golf with a vengeance. He played with me a bit growing up, but his college buddies pulled him into their golfing orbit freshman year and now he’s mildly obsessed. They play almost every day after classes when the weather is nice (thanks to a 9-hole course near campus that caters to poor college students).  

He started bringing that passion home with him every summer and drags his old man out on the course as often as possible. I don’t mind. I bonded with my dad on the golf course when I was his age, and any time your adult kids want to spend time with you, the answer is always “yes.” 

Last week, he asked me to meet him at the course after work. “Let’s walk instead of riding in a cart,” he said.  

My imagination obliged. 

I had visions of both of us striping our drives 285 down the middle as we leisurely strolled up the fairway talking about life, and faith, and his upcoming senior year of college. It was going to be epic! 

The reality did little to meet my expectations. 

We spent most of the evening driving our tee shots into the right and left trees. I was sucking so much wind pushing my pull cart up and down the hilly terrain, I could hardly speak. Those epic talks about life morphed into yelling yardage distances to one another across the fairways. 

Not everything meets our expectations. 

Sometimes Jesus doesn’t either. 

A Different Kind of Savior 

The good news, I guess, is that we’re not alone. 

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. The Bible says he came to “prepare the way” for the Lord. His God-given prophetic role was to call Israel to repentance in preparation for the coming of the long-awaited Messiah.  

He announced Jesus. He pointed to Jesus He even baptized Jesus and heard a voice from heaven say, “This is my Son,” as Jesus came up out of the water.  

But then circumstances took a turn for the worse. John was imprisoned, and Jesus wasn’t doing anything (it seemed) to liberate Israel from the oppression of the Romans. What in the world was happening here?  

Israel had very specific expectations of who the Messiah would be and what He would do—and Jesus was meeting none of them.  

They expected a “Warrior-Judge.” Jesus was going around offering grace and healing. Where was the vengeance, the carnage, the punishment of God’s enemies? Even the guy who announced Jesus as the Messiah was beginning to doubt.  

He sends word to Jesus from prison asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 

The Way of the Cross 

We can end up in the exact same place with Jesus, can’t we? We have very specific expectations of who He is and what we think He will do for us.  

Save us from our sins? Sure, there’s that.  

But surely He’ll help me get that promotion. 
Surely He’ll help me land that big customer. 
Surely He’ll help me fulfill all the dreams I have for my life. 
That’s what God is for……..right? 

We have expectations.  

Some of them stated. Some of them subtle. But inviting Jesus into our lives doesn’t mean He signs on to fulfill all our hopes and dreams. It means He’s invited us into His. 

The way of following the Crucified King has always involved dying to ourselves.  

We surrender our plans, our timelines, our ambitions, our expectations. Not because Jesus wants less for us, but because He wants something infinitely greater than we could ever build on our own. 

The people of Israel weren’t wrong to long for a Messiah. They were wrong about the kind of Messiah they needed. He was a conqueror. He just conquered through a cross. 

John was struggling because Jesus wasn’t following the script he expected.  

He rarely follows mine either. 

Maybe that’s where you find yourself today. You prayed for healing and received another diagnosis. You prayed for the promotion and watched someone else get it. You prayed for the business to grow, for your marriage to heal, for your kids to come back to faith, for that dream you’ve carried for years to finally come to life. Instead, you find yourself wondering what in the world God is doing. 

Maybe the better question isn’t, “Jesus, why aren’t You doing what I expected?” Maybe it’s, “Jesus, what are You doing that I’m struggling to see?” 

The good news is that Jesus doesn’t fail to meet our expectations because He doesn’t care. He fails to meet them because He sees something so much bigger than we do. 

We expect Jesus to help us build the life we’ve always imagined. All the while, He’s inviting us to surrender to something infinitely bigger—His Kingdom, His mission, and His Story. 

That’s the paradox of the gospel. The life I desperately try to hold onto is never the life I was truly created for. Jesus said we find our lives only after we’re willing to lose them. We surrender the throne, trust the true King, and discover that His Story is far better than the one we would have ever expected for ourselves.