Wait in Expectation

Expectant.

That’s the word I kept hearing from God in prayer this past December. After a year of being brave and saying brave yeses, I felt the Lord was telling me to be expectant of Him in the coming year.

And that’s terrifying.

I’m not someone who seeks to have a word for the year every year, but if something is clear and persistently on my heart I pay attention – and that has been the case with “expectant.”

I didn’t like it, and I still feel uncomfortable with it. (I asked God for a new word…He said no.) Here was my thought process: expectant means I have expectations of something to happen, and expectations lead to disappointment. And I don’t want to feel disappointed in God - not again.

I said brave yeses this last year, and God blessed me greatly in the process. But saying brave yeses meant saying brave noes to things I have wanted and prayed for. Sometimes this meant letting go and releasing things (and people) I loved and valued. I expected for God to meet me in certain ways as I stepped out in bravery. He always met me but it wasn’t always how I wanted Him to, and some of the ways He didn’t meet me how I expected were painful and felt more like loss. I wrestled, and still am wrestling, with knowing God is good but not necessarily trusting He is good to me.

But here’s what God has said back to me as I have already resisted and questioned this word, “expectant.” Expecting is indicative of the presence of hope. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Paul says this hope comes from glory in our suffering which produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:4). 

Do I trust that He will work the disappointment I’ve experienced to produce perseverance, character, and hope? Do I trust God enough to be expectant of Him to do good things in my life? Isn’t this how others will know that I know Jesus – through the hope I have? In Psalms 34:10 David says, “but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.” Sometimes the trust proceeds the gift. Sometimes hope is a catalyst for good things, and impacts our experiences of circumstances, people, and events.

Even earlier in Psalms David says, “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation (Psalms 5:3).” This not only suggests that I make requests of God, it instructs that I wait in expectation as I make those requests. Further, it’s proposed to start the day off – first thing – in this manner. It’s not an afterthought, it’s the first thought. Begin the day laying our requests before the Lord and wait in expectation. 

I don’t know what God wants me to be expectant of. Maybe He has something big coming my way. Maybe He is going to answer a prayer I have been praying for a long time. Or, maybe He wants me to learn to be expectant of Him, so the hope of Jesus will be evident to me in a way that changes someone’s faith – that changes my own faith.

So, as 2018 – my year of brave yeses – came to a close I said another brave yes to practice trusting what God is going to do this year in 2019 – to hope for good things from God – as He asks me to be expectant of Him.