When Expectations Meet God’s Will
- Salvatore Santaniello
- Jun 10
- 8 min read
Good morning, Sisters and Brothers.
Today I want to speak about expectations.
Expectations are funny things. We all have them. We carry them into marriage, parenting, work, church, prayer, friendship, callings, and even quiet moments with God.
Some expectations are good. They help us grow. They help us prepare. They help us show up.
But some expectations can quietly become contracts we never actually made with anyone.
We expect life to go a certain way. We expect people to respond a certain way. We expect our children to listen the first time, which is adorable. We expect a project to finish on schedule, which means we have clearly never waited on materials, weather, inspectors, or a subcontractor who says, “I’ll be there first thing,” and apparently means first thing next month.
And sometimes, if we are honest, we even expect God to follow the plan we already wrote for Him.
That is where expectations can become spiritually dangerous. Not because hope is bad. Hope is one of the great gifts of the gospel. But there is a difference between hope and demand.
Hope says, “Lord, I trust Thee.”
Demand says, “Lord, here is the schedule, here is the outcome, and I would appreciate You signing at the bottom.”
Most of us have prayed both kinds of prayers.
I know I have.
The scriptures teach us a better way. Proverbs says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” That is not just a pretty scripture for a kitchen wall. That is a lifetime of work. It means trusting God when the map does not match the road. It means trusting Him when the blessing comes later than we wanted, differently than we pictured, or in a form we did not recognize at first.
Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 says, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say.” That is a powerful promise. But sometimes we quietly add our own paragraph underneath it. We say, “And Lord, when I do what Thou sayest, here is exactly how I expect the blessing to arrive.”
But the Lord never promised that discipleship would give us control over every outcome. He promised that if we are faithful, He will keep His promises. There is a big difference.
A few years ago, I learned this lesson again while scuba diving.
I love diving. I've been a diver all my life. My dad was a 24 year Navy veteran diver.
There is something about being underwater that feels like stepping into another world. Down there, everything slows down. You hear your breathing. You watch the light move through the water. You realize how small you are, which is a useful gospel lesson all by itself.
On this particular dive, I had expectations. Big ones.
In my mind, the water was going to be clear, the fish were going to show up like they had been personally assigned by the tourism board, and maybe a sea turtle would glide by slowly enough for me to feel like I was in a documentary.
That was my plan.
The ocean did not receive the memo.
The water was murky. Visibility was poor. The fish were apparently attending another ward. And instead of a peaceful, perfect dive, it became one of those dives where you are mostly checking gauges, watching your buddy, and trying to stay calm.
At one point, my dive buddy started having trouble. Nothing ruins your perfect underwater fantasy quite like realizing the person next to you is not doing great. Suddenly I was not thinking about beautiful views. I was not thinking about fish. I was not thinking about the dive I expected.
I was thinking about getting both of us safely back where we needed to be.
And that changed everything.
The dive was not what I expected. But it taught me something better than the dive I had planned.
That happens in life too.
Sometimes we expect beauty, and God teaches us patience. Sometimes we expect ease, and God teaches us trust. Sometimes we expect the picture-perfect version, and God gives us the saving version.
That is not always comfortable. But it is often holy.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught this in a powerful way in his October 1995 General Conference talk, “Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father.” He said, “The submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar.”
That sentence has weight.
Most things I offer God were His before they were mine. My time, my talents, my body, my family, my breath, my opportunities — all of it came from Him first.
But my will? My choice? My expectations? That is mine to surrender.
And that is hard.
It is hard to place our will on the altar when what we really want to place there is a request form. It is hard to say, “Thy will be done,” when part of us wants to say, “My will, but with heavenly approval.”
The Savior showed us the perfect pattern in Gethsemane. Facing suffering beyond anything we can understand, He prayed, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Nevertheless.
That may be one of the most faithful words in all scripture.
“Father, I am afraid — nevertheless.”
“Father, this hurts — nevertheless.”
“Father, I do not understand — nevertheless.”
“Father, this is not what I expected — nevertheless.”
That word does not make pain disappear. It does not pretend disappointment is easy. It does not make us fake-smile our way through life like everything is fine when it is not.
It simply turns our hearts back toward God.
Elder Maxwell also taught that when our will becomes swallowed up in God’s will, we do not lose ourselves. We find our true selves. That matters, because sometimes we are afraid surrender means God will erase us. But God is not trying to erase us. He is trying to redeem us.
He is not taking away our story. He is teaching us what the story is really about.
I have seen that in work too.
In construction and restoration, expectations are everywhere. Homeowners expect things to be done quickly. Insurance expects documentation. Subcontractors expect clear instructions and fair pay. Project managers expect everyone to answer the phone, which is apparently a bold and radical dream.
I have walked into projects thinking, “This should be simple,” and then watched simple become complicated before lunch.
A roof repair turns into hidden damage. A one-day job turns into a week. Materials are delayed. Weather rolls in. Somebody measured wrong. Somebody forgot something.
Somebody says, “That was already like that,” and suddenly everyone is testifying, but not in the church way.
In those moments, I have a choice. I can cling to the expectation I had, or I can deal faithfully with the reality in front of me.
That is true in discipleship too.
Faith is not pretending the job is easy. Faith is choosing Christ in the middle of the change order.
Faith is saying, “This is not what I expected, but I can still be honest. I can still be kind. I can still do the next right thing. I can still trust God.”
That does not mean we lower all expectations. The gospel is full of holy expectations. God expects us to repent. He expects us to forgive. He expects us to serve. He expects us to keep covenants. He expects us to care about the people around us.
But God’s expectations are different from worldly pressure.
The world says, “Be impressive.”
The Savior says, “Follow Me.”
The world says, “Control the outcome.”
The Savior says, “Trust Me.”
The world says, “You are behind.”
The Savior says, “Come unto Me.”
The world says, “Your life should have looked different by now.”
The Savior says, “I am not finished with you.”
That is a better expectation.
Sometimes we also need to adjust what we expect from other people.
We expect people to understand us perfectly. They will not.
We expect family members to know what we need without us saying it. They usually do not.
We expect ward members to never disappoint us. They will, because the Church is true but the people are still people. That includes me. That includes you. That includes the guy who takes the last brownie at the linger-longer and leaves the empty plate like a crime scene.
The Savior gave us a better rule in Matthew 7:12: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
That means if I expect patience, I should offer patience.
If I expect mercy, I should offer mercy.
If I expect room to grow, I should give others room to grow.
If I want people to see more in me than my worst day, then I need to stop defining others by theirs.
That is not easy. But it is Christian.
And it brings us back to Elder Maxwell’s teaching. The will we place on God’s altar is not only about accepting trials. It is also about letting God change how we treat people when life does not go our way.
Sometimes the expectation God wants to change is not the one we have for Him. It is the one we have for everyone else.
Maybe faithful expectations sound something like this:
I expect God to keep His promises.
I expect Jesus Christ to be merciful.
I expect the Holy Ghost to guide me as I seek Him.
I expect life to be uneven, because mortality is not heaven yet.
I expect people to be imperfect, because so am I.
I expect that some answers will come slowly.
I expect that some blessings will look different than I imagined.
And I expect that if I keep turning toward Christ, He will make more of my life than I could have made on my own.
That kind of expectation does not make us passive. It makes us steady.
It lets us work hard without worshiping the outcome.
It lets us plan without panicking.
It lets us love people without demanding perfection from them.
It lets us pray with real desire and still say, “Nevertheless.”
Brothers and sisters, I believe Heavenly Father does exceed our expectations, but often not by giving us the exact life we pictured. He exceeds them by giving us Jesus Christ.
He gives us a Savior who understands disappointment.
A Savior who knows what it means to be rejected.
A Savior who knows what it means to suffer unfairly.
A Savior who knows what it means to submit His will completely to the Father.
A Savior who can meet us in murky water, delayed projects, family stress, unanswered prayers, quiet grief, and ordinary Tuesdays when we are just tired.
I testify that Jesus Christ is not disappointed in us because our lives are messier than we expected. He came because life is messy. He came because we need mercy. He came because God’s plan was never built around our perfection. It was built around His.
As we place our expectations, our timelines, our disappointments, and our will on the altar of God, I believe He will teach us to trust Him more deeply.
And little by little, drop by drop, dive by dive, project by project, prayer by prayer, our will can become more swallowed up in His.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
General Conference Talk:
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father,” October 1995 General Conference.
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