Great Expectations Vol. II

"God is bigger than our expectations." These words were spoken by a very wise woman a few weeks ago at the Monday night bible study I attend. These six words..... this simple statement..... has had an intensely profound effect on my outlook of life. For the past 5 months I have been internally grappling with this idea of expectations. This cosmic wrestling match has affected my mood, my self talk, and my relationship with God. I've been trying to understand what it is to have biblical expectations while trying to figure out & weed through my own fleshly & self-imposed expectations on life & God. I've been trying to sort through all of this for 2 main reasons. The first being for own peace of mind and the second being that I am required to do a missions internship as part of my graduation stipulations and I knew with everything inside of me, that I would never be able to behold & recieve all that God had for me on this internship unless we got this sorted out. This particular thing had become a bit of a roadblock for me and built an un-intentional wall between myself & my Savior. BUT.......

God in his good and perfect timing spoke these beautiful and impactful words through a friend, completely changing my perspective on this particular issue. "God is bigger than our expectations." To be human is to have expectations & to have expectations is to be human. I've realized that many times I create unconcious expectations about various things and am upset or flustered when they don't come to furtution without really understanding why, and other times I make intentional expectations of how something should go and am really thrown into a frenzy when it doesn't happen. Immediately following something like this begins the process of dealing with the disappointment and reconciling my damaged ego to His sovereignty & confidence.

"God is bigger than our expectations." This is what I am learning from this simple yet profound statement. My self-imposed expectations are a result of only being able to see a miniscule piece of the bigger picture. I'm learning that a lot of my expectations are me focused instead of Him focused. I am learning that God wants to do so much more than what I can imagine-in fact, God being bigger than my expectations means that He wants "to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to His power that is within us." (Ephesians 3:20) That word immeasurable means: impossible to measure/limitless or vast. Sounds vaguely reminiscent of one of God's attributes does it not? Only an infinite God could be bigger than my expectations & for that, I'm incredibly grateful.

So for this current stage of life these are the kinds of expectations I can have in Him.
I can expect God to do what is good in all situations. I can expect God to meet me where I am, regardless of my condition. I can expect Him to continue to teach me so that I may proceed in growth towards spiritual maturity. I can expect Him to stretch me, refine me & break me as He sees fit. I can expect to be used by God as He deems worthy. I can expect encouragement when I do right and loving rebuke when I do wrong. I can expect to be led & redirected by His Spirit to accomplish His purposes. These are the expectations that I can live in day by day.

"God is bigger than our expectations." With this thought, everything has changed. With this thought, things will never be the same. Lord I pray that I never forget this very important & insightful lesson that You have taught me these past 5 months.