EXPECTATIONS

I was struck today by the number of people at work for whom life seems to have no expectations.  They come in and go home without any real hope for anything – it’s just a job that sometimes pays the bills.  I often wonder if that’s how they treat their life – it’s just a life and it will end. It’s just the way life is and I have to put up with it.  Doom and gloom – bitter and depressed – no hope for anything beyond a paycheck that doesn’t seem to quite cover all the costs of living in the world.

I’ve watched so many people get hung-up by all the things they didn’t get that they think they deserve just by showing up for work.  I hear it all the time – “How did she get that job, I’ve been here longer and I deserve it.  What’s he got that I don’t have more of or am better at?  No one ever gives me a chance. She didn’t write that report, I did, but she got all the credit. I work harder than he does. I never get recognized for what I do. I’ll always be right where I am – nowhere.”  They’re all bound up in power, position, and acclaim.  I suppose they think that’s what life is all about. Oh ye of small expectations …

I wonder if people like that ever notice that they created a lot of the rejection they feel on their own accord.  As humans we’re really good at justifying our feelings.  I can be bitter because it wasn’t my fault.  I can be mean and hateful because that’s how life has treated me and that’s just the way I am, so you’d better get over it.  I may as well hold my breath until I turn blue since no one is giving me what I want. Quick!  Run as fast you can the other way!  Don’t stay around scornful, negative, life-draining, depressed, darkness-oriented, unfortunate people who refuse to let God speak life to them.

God is the only one who can deliver us from what we’ve done to ourselves.  He’s the only one who can bring us out of a terrible darkness into the light of life in him. We need to walk away from the secular world and stop adopting their negative, self-focused ways.  Grow up, God says, and learn to live in the light.  Stop running for darkness every time you run into hardship or hurtful situations.  If you want to work for the Kingdom, you can’t remain bitter, jealous, and scornful.  You can’t serve others if you can’t let go of the bitterness you’ve allowed to enter your life because you didn’t get what you wanted.

I know I’ve played that game.  Poor, poor, pitiful me – no one sees my worth and no one gives me a chance.  Instead of wallowing in my own bitter mud, I needed to get up and get out of there and start doing something about it. Like the prodigal son, I need to come to myself, realize that even the servants in my father’s house are better off than I am, and run back to the Father as fast as I can for deliverance.  His mercy and grace cover a multitude of sins and I’ve probably committed far more than I’ll willingly admit.

My sister Renee says that sometimes we don’t get much because we don’t expect much.  I think she’s right.  If you expect the church to stay small, it probably will.  But if you ask God to bring in the harvest and to bring in people to disciple, and expect that he will do just that, you may need a new building inside of a month.  Stop being your own worst enemy and start expecting God to bless you – your family, your business, and your church.  And then get out there and do something about it.  Don’t just sit there and whine about what you don’t have.  Stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the Cross!

If you want to change your world, you’d better get moving.  Search God out and pray for his guidance.  Read the Scriptures and look for his promises.  Believe in his ability to do all that he has promised he will do.  God is waiting for you to believe and he is waiting to bless you beyond your ability to conceive.  But if you don’t believe, you won’t be blessed.  You have to be totally and absolutely sold out to God’s plan and his purpose for your life, even if you don’t really know exactly what that looks like.

I mean, really, look at me – I’m not so much.  But little IS much when God is in it.  I may look like a plain, ordinary nobody to the world, but God sees me as his beautiful child, who he loves more than anything and wants to bless more than anything, if I’d only let him.  The person stopping me from getting God’s blessings is me.  If I don’t receive, it’s probably because I didn’t ask and didn’t do.  It’s no one else’s fault, especially not God’s.  It’s all about me and my selfish, small-minded, no expectations thinking. 

I need to ask God to refresh my mind and my Spirit daily so I don’t end up living in bitterness, remorse, and regret. I need to raise my expectations and living out God’s plan for my life.  I need to start distributing some of those gifts of the Spirit instead of trying to hoard them for myself (where they won’t do much good).  I need to stop whining and complaining and start being a positive influence, speaking life to others, and giving them a window into the holistic, healing, beautiful Kingdom God is offering them.