We
enter the gallery from the far side, because we know.
We
know that at the end the gallery stands Ava’s favorite painting. She knows it too and through each room she
asks where the monkey is.
I
tell her it’s coming, another room and then another.
Finally
we arrive. We bend around the corner of the second to last gallery and she
stands in front of the great painting to drink it in.
For
ten or so minutes we decide which little girl she is. If she is carrying an umbrella or
if maybe today she is playing by the beach.
Each and every time she tells me one day she will own a monkey and I
remind her as long as I draw breath, that will not happen.
I
try and squeeze in a few more paintings and she squeezes in her questions about
our agenda. She will ask, “What is next?”
and quickly follow with, “And then?”
She
is not satisfied until I can button up the entire schedule for the day with
bedtime. She LOVES agenda. Without question, she gets that from me.
Also
like me, she perturbs at any unknowns.
She wants structure and she wants life to flow according to
expectations. I get that because so do
I.
I
learned a long time ago to remove my expectations of people. There is freedom in a lack of expectations and much more there
is an extraordinary lack of disappointment.
I taste the sweetness in people in ways I never have before because I
expect no sugar.
This
formula however, this mantra that I have so fiercely embraced has led me into
the most dangerous water of not expecting from God.
This
truth snuck up on me when a friend quoted her beloved regarding his prayer
life. She said, “He absolutely expected…”
When
was the last time I prayed like that?”
I
talk to Him dear one. I pray to
Him. I ask and I know He answers, but like my baby daughter I have come to rely
on Him to obey my thoughts and requests according to my hopes and yes, my
expectations.
The
words sang through my soul for days, “He absolutely expected…”
What?
Paul writing to Ephesus tells us exactly what we
can expect...
Now unto him
that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us.
How
do I confuse my natural abhorrence of something like expectations to a supernatural
promise of the same?
I
apply my natural mind, my natural heart, my natural ambition and my earthly
hopes to the supernatural mind and heart and hope of Christ.
So
what can we expect?
We
can expect that He loves us with wild abandon, and we can also expect He can
meet our expectation. When was the last
time I prayed and let Him run free? When
will I learn what the great missionary preacher said, that FAITH expects from
God what is BEYOND expectation.
We
can expect what we cannot dream, what no eyes have seen and what no mind has
conceived. What one woman has put on her
agenda is a drop in the ocean of what He can do.
When
do I let Him run, when do I let Him do, when do I begin to trust that His
goodness extends far beyond my imagination?
When
do I remove doubt and embrace surrender and when do I move past agendas to
abundance?
I
want to testify to miracles. Miracles
require permission; the permission of a heart to travel and souls to dream.
Expect
what we expect and receive just that, expect abundance and we embrace extraordinary.
In the morning, Lord, you hear my
voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
Psalm 5:3
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