Mark Affleck

Expectations Are STRANGLING My Faith In God 

January 6, 2020
Spiritual Growth

This just in from our global tribe of 511,000 online followers:

“I want to be confident in 2020 but there is no reason to expect anything other than what has happened in the past. I expect things to be messed up.”

This question raises one of the most important points every Christian must continually consider: EXPECTATIONS.
  
Doing just that is one of the steps I take every year when JANUARY rolls in.
  
Checking in on my EXPECTATIONS starts with this two-stroke, introspective approach:
  
1) Accept that life lacks clarity.
  
2) Celebrate the wait for God to paint a new picture on a fresh canvas.
  
This brings exhilaration to the notion of living each day EXPECTING God to speak and act. After all, we can’t be full of hope when we’re wracked with worry. It’s an incredible feeling to relax in the middle of life’s vortex and laugh at its fascinating theater.
  
Of course it takes courage to call on God’s strength to push through our unmet expectations and stop fixating on the imaginary door we build with our thoughts about what we think “might happen” or what “ought to happen.” 
  
Why not try a different approach?
  
Just think if we lived IMMUNE to what we perceive to be the expectations of others…and concentrated solely on the expectations of Jesus.
  
It works! Christians who forget about “outside expectations and place the interests of others above their own will receive God’s blessings and a boost in their spiritual confidence.
  
Stopping the EXPECTATION MONSTER in its tracks takes trusting God for everything and allowing him to fill the holes with his perspective. Put simply, it takes prayer to win the battle. Ask him!
  
I ask God to help me accept that the painful things in my life have a purpose far beyond that which I will ever be able to understand. And then I ask him to turn my focus to never settling for compromised expectations.
  
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
  
What are you expecting to happen today? This week? This year in 2020? How does that match up with what God would want you to expect?
  
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” Philippians 1:20
  

  

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