What to expect when you're expecting …

Whether we know it or not, we’re all expecting. Expecting something.

~

You consider a decision. You pray about it. Perhaps you even fast. You wait for God and sense His leading. You check it out with His Word. You act. You obey. The result?

Failure. Or frustration. Or misunderstanding. Or just total confusion as to how your following God could lead to such a mess.

Have you ever been there? 

The fact that we (I) find this so disturbing or distressing reveals the fact that we believe one of the most subtle and widely held false-teachings in our world.

That obeying God means smooth sailing waters and white teeth. 

Although there are many individual faiths in the East, we tend to clump them all together as “Eastern Religion” because they have so many commonalities. I’d suggest that there is also a “Western Religion” that is not true Christianity, but a strange cocktail of Christian-ish ideas and American ideals. The defining characteristic of Western Religion? That following God means things will go my way. 

This is the religion preached by many. That the “favor of God” will make all obstacles melt away and people will do what I want and I’ll have health, wealth, and popularity.

But I can’t find this anywhere in Scripture. Yes, when we live wisely we will often reap rewards in this life. Absolutely. But when Paul obeyed God he was stoned, dragged out of the city, shipwrecked and nearly starved. When Jesus obeyed God He was hung on a cross. The promise, far from relative ease and a nice new car to drive, is that those who desire to live godly lives will suffer persecution.

That is the promise for us.

But I’ve never seen that one on a coffee mug. 

I don’t like that promise any more than you do. I don’t like that that’s what I should expect when I’m expecting. But I do believe the reason that I’m often perplexed, disappointed, or surprised by hardship is that I’ve following “Western Religion” and not following Christ. Christ says to take up my cross. Christ says the world will hate us because it hated Him. Christ says in this world we will have troubles. Christ says His Kingdom is upside down. The first shall be last. The meek shall inherit the earth.

Friends, we must shape our beliefs and expectations based on God’s WORD, not on Western Religion or American idealism. It is so easy for the world’s philosophy to infiltrate our hearts and minds and slowly lead us to false expectations … to bitter disappointment.

So what should we expect?

Opposition. Persecution. Obstacles. Suffering. Trials. Conflict. Hardship. Storms. But most of all …

Except to see and encounter Him in the midst of it all.

He is found in the midst of the storm, the suffering, the obstacle. When we run from those things,  we run from Him. He is there.

I expect to face these things, and I expect to see His face there. 

That’s what I can expect. 

{Praying that you can see HIM today, in whatever storm you are facing. Bless you, and thank you for reading.}