John the Baptist served God, loved God, and honored God with everything he had, yet he was murdered over the foolish, drunken oath of an insecure, lustful, power-hungry man who wanted to save face among his equally inebriated friends and subjects.

How do you handle injustice? As I consider John's ungracious, unjust exit from this life and consider the expectations I place on God and the entitlement I feel is due me for my service and loyalty to the kingdom--whether this be the standard of living I enjoy, the friends I keep, or the death I die--I must question the nature of my expectations. Certainly they set me up for disappointment as do all expectations, but on a greater scale, my expectations for this life also indicate a belief that I will be rewarded with something of heaven on earth for having done deeds that elicit God's favor. How shortsighted!

I'm convicted of how easy it is to live in the small story I have created, while missing the larger story that God has envisioned. Life is not fair, and in the way we define fair, God is not fair. But I don't think we want God to be fair. If God were fair, we would all be in hell.

My life is not about me or what is best for me. My life, like John's, is about pointing the way to the Father. It's about loving and enjoying God.

What did you expect the Christian life to be about?