Devotion 392 - expectations

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