Thank you for reading, Maralize! What’s difficult is identifying what constitutes a “hope” from an “expectation,” seeing as you can both “hope to go to dinner tonight” and “expect to go to dinner tonight.” Both entail a plan (which are not inherently bad), and both involve the same subject (“going to dinner”), and yet “hopes” and “expectations” entail different heart dispositions. Adding to the confusion, “hope” and “expectation” are terms that can be used as similes, so someone could use the term “expectation” and be talking about a “hope,” as someone could use the word “hope” and be talking about an “expectation.” Ultimately, only the person can know, which suggests why judgments can be so problematic.

It’s practically impossible for anyone to live without plans, but it’s also problematic to need plans to avoid boredom. These distinctions are mapped out in the long version of this blog “On Materialism, Purpose, and Discernment,” but let me see if I can make some edits to help clarify these positions in the blog, because the points are not clear. It’s always a hard choice between precision and length: if a work is precise, it has to be long, but if it’s long, less people read it. Oh tradeoffs…

Plans are not inherently bad, nor are expectations if by “expectations” one means something like “hope” — it all comes down to heart dispositions and fruits only we may have the eyes to identify. I think it’s true like Keller says that we have to be careful with expectations and corresponding plans, precisely because they are so similar to hopes, and because they can lead to disappointment. It’s a fine balancing act that if we’re not aware there’s even a balancing act going on, we’re likely to mess it up. No one is perfect though.

Thanks again for reading!