5:Expectancy Wrestles

Expectancy without expectation certainly isn’t easy. It’s difficult not only because it’s hard to relinquish things, but also because we are called to pray specifically, asking God for what we need. But we also have limited understanding, and so most of the time we don’t even know what we need.  Ever felt confused by this?

So how do we do it?  We’re called to pray for Shawna, and yet we’re also called to relinquish the results to God and not have expectations.  Someone please tell me how this is possible?!

I think that it is possible, but not easy. We do it by faith but only God knows exactly how all this works.   If we can easily relinquish the outcome of a situation, chances are it’s not that important to us.

True expectancy wrestles.  True expectancy fights by faith.

Habakkuk is the best example of this.  Habakkuk is a prophet, and his little letter is basically his wrestling conversation with God.  It goes like this:

Habakkuk says, “God do something!  Your people are awful!  Draw them back to you!”

And God says, “I am doing something! I’m sending the Chaldeans to come destroy them and carry them all away captive in exile.”

And then Habakkuk says, “Uh, not exactly what I had in mind, God!  How can you use the horrible Chaldeans, heathens, and let them have victory over US, your people? That’s not fair!”

And God says, “I am God. I have chosen this as my means of both exercising judgment and of drawing my people back to me.”

There you have it.

There is a struggle. There is the wrestling. Habbakuk is an example to us of this wrestling.  We don’t just go, “Oh ok, kill us all.  Conquer us, let us die of disease. Ok.”  But we wrestle in prayer, we fight by faith, we cry out to God, we plead, we fast, we pray, we intercede for what we understand to be God’s best, as best as we know.

“If this cup can pass…

…But let thy will be done.”

And Habbakuk finishes with this, after God’s judgment is determined, the outcome is final.  It is then that he concludes his book: with amazing joyful resolve:

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior. (3:17-18)

This is not a lay-down-and-die sort of thing. It is a process of wrestling, a fight of faith. A process like this:

We first identify what it is that we’re expecting and how we’ve already experienced the disappointment of thwarted expectations.  Then we process through that pain and allow ourselves to be vulnerable with God, recognizing the things we fear, and allowing those expectations to die.  And then, here, we begin to root ourselves deeper, we wrestle with God, fight with faith as Habbakuk does.  We plead and implore, we intercede, we let ourselves get involved in the situation.  And then as we wrestle through this, we begin to let a quiet sweet resolve break through, when death is impending, when invasion by the Chaldeans is imminent, when the thing, the hope, the dream has died, then we realize that our expectancy must be in God, our expectations may have been thwarted, our dreams may have died …

… But our faith is alive.

And so is our God.

When all is stripped away, our gaze falls on the One True God: The final key to expectancy. Will you join me tomorrow?  Until then, can we be brave enough to wrestle? To fight with faith, tears and prayers, and then say,

…I will rejoice in the LORD.

Thank you for reading.