Happy Wednesday, Friends!
And to those visiting, I say welcome! I post most Wednesdays and my sole purpose is to nourish your soul along the way. Every once in a while I give away fun stuff to those who post on my blog.
This week I’ll give away a couple copies of my NEW book, ‘Your Beautiful Purpose’ (releases in January). So share a thought or insight, bless lots of people, and you might win a copy of Your Beautiful Purpose: Discovering and Enjoying What God Can Do Through You. I’m excited about this book. I pray it blesses you!
Now on to my topic…
Several years ago my mentor said these compelling words to me: Susie, there’s a big difference between expectation and expectancy. Expectation is premeditated disappointment, where expectancy involves faith. Expectation means you’ve decided how things need to turn out for you to be okay; expectancy engages your faith in the fact that God is involved in your life, but it opens up the possibility that He may come through for you in a way and at a time that you least expect.
Wow, wise words, wouldn’t you say?
I don’t know what kind of year you’ve had but for me, it’s been a bittersweet one. On one hand we’ve seen God move in ways that have completely inspired our faith, and on the other hand, we’ve experienced loss and heartbreak in ways that have left me breathless.
Can you relate?
What are we to do with the very real sense of loss, disappointment, and heartbreak we encounter along life’s way? How do we keep our disappointments from tangling us up, from strangling our joy, and from skewing our perspective?
The answer, I believe, is this:
To release expectation
To embrace expectancy
It’s time to open our clenched fists and release the crinkled picture of how we thought things would look by now. It’s time to hand it over to the One who knows us best and loves us most. God has a bigger canvas and a far bigger brush. He can paint something beautiful with our lives and with our story that we can’t even comprehend right now. We need to give Him time and space to work in, through, and around us. It’s time to release our puny, detailed expectation of what we think our lives should look like.
And, it’s time to pick up expectancy and to wrap our arms around the fact that Jesus is alive and active in our lives. He moves on faith. Fear doesn’t motivate Him. Faith does. So as we embrace His love and trust His promise to hear our prayers and respond to our faith, we can know, that any day now, Jesus will break through in ways that surprise us.
We’re never out of His care, never out of His reach. He is the God of breakthroughs and He loves to break through when the time is right.
Embrace expectancy. Tell yourself that any day now, you’ll see glimpses of glory and evidences of His activity in your life. Because it’s true; right now, He’s moving on your behalf.
Look up. Seek Him. You’ll find Him. He’s got you. And your faith pleases Him greatly.
~Have a blessed week!