1:Expectancy is Trusting God With Not For

Finally, we come to our blessed main event: Expectancy. The essence of this life of faith is expectancy without expectation. So excited to look at this with you.

We talked about Three Particularly difficult types of disappointment (those that are long, those that are not understood, and those which we must bear silently) and saw that disappointment is defined as thwarted expectation.  We saw how God purposefully and strategically disappoints us so that we will believe, in order to deliver us from fear and birth in us true faith. We saw how that fear can keep us from entering into disappointment, keep us from dealing honestly with God, and keep us on the disappointment cycle.

Praise God there is another cycle: The Fulfillment cycle. More on that to come.  For now, let’s look at Expectancy and see how it differs from Expectation. We’ll look at expectancy like a 6-sided cube. There are 4 main aspects, then one underneath that is difficult to see, and one that can only be seen from above. We’ll look at one each day. Shall we begin?

1. Expectancy is trusting God with not for.

We have to embrace that living in expectancy is not simply believing God FOR something. We hear all the time in Christian circles the idea of trusting God for something or believing God for something.  I’m trusting God for and then name a thing that we’re basically just really wanting.  Of course it is good lay our cares before the Lord and trust Him concerning those things.  But I think there might be a subtle difference between trusting God with something and trusting God for something.  The difference between Expectancy and Expectation.

For example, if I’m trusting God with a situation, it means that I’m trusting that whatever the outcome, His grace is sufficient and His character demands my faith and trust.  If I’m trusting God for a job, a house, a good diagnosis, etc. then I’m placing my own expectations on what I think God should do. It’s like I’m subtly twisting God’s arm saying, “Ok God, here’s my faith, now do what I want you to do.”  I’m afraid that I do this way more often that I even realize.

Let’s look briefly at the prime example of trusting God no matter what the outcome:  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.  They were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace and they trust God with their heated circumstances:

“Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from your hand, O king.  But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods.”  [Daniel 3:16-18]

Basically, they’re saying, We’re not only trusting God for deliverance out of the fiery furnace, we trust God with our situation and He is God and can do whatever He pleases.

Believing God for something is really nothing more than making a wish list, then slapping a holy-sounding word like “belief” or “trust” on it to make my dreams come true.  That is nothing more than expectation.  So instead of trusting God for something, our goal is to trust God. Period.

Believing God means that even if nothing changes, if my circumstances remain the same, even if the “bad thing” happens, I will yet trust Him, I will hope in Him, I will rejoice in Him.  We say with Job, “Though He slay me yet will I trust Him”   Now keep in mind, we are very limited in this.  I don’t currently have the grace to even fathom coping with the loss of my husband or my children.  We don’t have to be ok with it–as if Oh I’m fine if my family dies and the world falls apart.  But we can prepare, as best as we know how, so that when the circumstances of life overwhelm us, we are prepared with our eyes filled with expectancy, rather than simply hoping in expectations that we fabricate in our minds.

Expectancy is fueled by faith; Expectation, by fear.

Are there any areas where you’re currently believing God for something instead of trusting God with something? I know the relinquishment is painful. I’m praying for grace, for us all, as we trust God with our all. Thanks for reading.