What To Expect When You Don’t Get What You’re Expecting - Graham Scarborough

Figuring out how to live amongst fourteen other people is tough when you have always been a loner.

Growing up, I never had a Christian friend group that I could really become sanctified with. I found myself bouncing from school to school, church to church, and even state to state, and still I was met with little to no social circle. This was a big source of enmity against God for me, as it was something I never thought would be resolved. Sky Ranch, though, was my first foray into really experiencing God in a large way through others. I started working at Sky the summer after my senior year of high school (thanks to my brother) and from there I was finally able to meet others who had a heart for Christ! Yet as things have often gone in my life, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. When I went to college, I found the same problems as the ones I found growing up were awaiting me. I found myself often discontented with relationships I made during the summer as well because they had no longevity. I still felt as alone as I did my whole life after every summer at Sky. After five summers, though, I would soon find out that was not Sky Ranch’s fault.

After twenty-two years of my life with no steady ‘best friend’ in my life, I figured the Fellowship program would be my last shot, seeing as real adult life started soon after. What I came to realize very quickly, though, was one of the biggest gut punches of my life. None of the relationships at the beginning of the Fellowship looked like how I wanted them to. Friendship looked entirely different than I thought it would be my whole life. God, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, was trying to tell me something all those years that I was complaining and bitter, and that answer was made abundantly clear in the Fellowship. Expectations are not inherently bad. They allow us to guard our hearts, to garner excitement in ourselves, and they provide a framework for us to try and work out the future with. What God had been trying to show me for so long was that my expectations were not framed with a mindset of pursuit in Christ. I thought friendship was supposed to be about how much other people wanted to interact with me and love on me (I hope you see where I erred there) but God showed me through the amazing men and women I met at Sky Ranch that friendship looks different with everyone, and it is most certainly not focused on me.           

Even after I learned that lesson, it has still been a tough season of life for me. I try often to interpret what God has next for me. I fail frequently, and yet I have a God that forgives readily. So, what do you expect when you don’t get what you’re expecting? Expect that God will move in ways you will never dream of in your life. Expect that you will be rocked by endless waves and wind, but your trust in the Lord will keep you steady. Expect that everything you thought you knew could be flipped upside down by an awesome God, leaving you with an even better life than you could have ever imagined. Taking all that into account, I would not be the man I am if I didn’t finish this off with a poem I wrote about what the Lord has done for me:

Oh God, that I would only know the depth of Your influence throughout my time here on this Earth. From crawling to walking, from walking to running, every breath and every step was guided and given by You, Lord, providing unceasingly endless love yet unfortunately unnoticed by my foolish, unfruitful young heart. How minute the details, Father, that speckle and sparkle my life with Your name in every single shimmer. You, THE unwavering force of good, purity, and holiness, chose me to be a refraction of that light. Without Your light I am naught but an empty, dark, and cracked lens, lending myself to destruction. You sanctify and purify this broken glass I call my soul, saving me from myself in every situation. I praise you in the known and the unknown, Sustainer, for in both You prevail with power. I know that You are a good God, holy in all Your ways, and though I may not ever know the plans You have in store for me, I praise You because I know that they will be for good. As I am here on this Earth, may every breath I breathe be echoing scripture and sound doctrine due to Your gift of life to me. Though I know not where You have intervened and intertwined Your Hand in my life, I know You are good and gracious to continue doing so again and again. Oh God, though I will never know the depth of Your influence throughout my time here on this Earth, I will praise you all the same as if You invited me to creation itself. Like a child I will marvel in my ignorance of Your plans and thoughts, and like a man I will bask in Your infinite and incomparable glory.