My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. -- Psalm 62: 5 (NKJV)
I want to challenge you today to give some serious thought to the question contained in the title of this devotional. What do you expect from God? What do you expect when you wake up in the morning to start your day? What do you expect when you are waiting on that big promotion? What do you expect when you go to church to hear His Word? Or worship Him? What do you expect when you pray? Sadly, I think that too often we fail to give proper consideration for expectancy when it comes to our Christianity. The result is our faith grows cold. We still believe but we fail to consider what we believe. The Bible says we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling but too often we are working it out with fatigue and complacency. When we lose our expectancy prayer becomes a ritual or a chore. When we lose our expectancy going to church becomes a ministry task instead of an opportunity to meet with God. Worship becomes a chance to criticize the music instead of enter into His presence. Reading the Bible becomes an academic exercise instead of a Spiritual endeavor. When we lose our expectancy of God our day rules us instead of us ruling our day. When we expect from God correctly, we exercise our faith muscles and grow stronger in God. So let us take a look today at some of the facets of our expectancy.
The first thing we need to realize is that this is nothing new. Christianity is described as a walk, not a sprint. Our walk will have highs and lows; mountaintops and valleys. God is still God and our faith is supposed to stay on an even keel as well but sometimes our circumstances can get in the way. We shouldn't feel however that our loss of expectancy in God is somehow special or deserving of condemnation. Let's look at the disciples. In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark we see Jesus perform the miracle of feeding the 5000. realize of course that it was 5000 men PLUS their families so it really was more like 10,000 people fed by Jesus using only five loaves of bread and two fish! Can you picture the scene? The disciples and Jesus were being swamped by their ministry demands:
The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, "Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile." He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. -- Mark 6: 30-33 (NLT)
Can anyone relate? Sometimes in ministry we can get so overwhelmed. But they press on and later in the evening, Jesus feeds them everyone with what little resources they had. Sometimes we come to God thinking we need to have it all together but God can work miracles with what little you might have. The issue of expectancy however we see two chapters later. In the eighth chapter we see their ministry efforts continuing and they find themselves in what should be familiar territory:
About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, "I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance." His disciples replied, "How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?" -- Mark 8: 1-4 (NLT)
Where is the expectancy of the disciples? From all I can see these two events are not separated by a vast amount of time. You would think that one of the 12 would remember the miracle He just did under the exact same circumstances, no? Shouldn't the disciples have gone running up to Jesus with the seven loaves and few small fish and expected Him to at least do what He already has shown He can do? How does this apply in our lives today? Sometimes we lose our expectancy with God for things He has already proven Himself faithful in as well. We have seen God answer our prayers and yet our prayer life can still suffer. We have felt the awesome presence of God during worship but we can consistently show up late for church as if it is no big deal. It simply should not be so beloved.
Finishing the race God has marked out for us is so important. Too often we start strong and flame out. Other times the drag of the walk wears on our faith and expectancy. Let's take a look at an Old Testament example of someone who also forgot all that God had done for him. King Asa was a king of Judah who correctly followed the Lord. He was the great-grandson of King Solomon. Asa was zealous in eliminating unrighteousness and idolatry from Israel. At the tenth year of his reign, God gave him peace on all sides for 25 years. In the 36th year however, King Baasha of Israel invaded Judah and Asa forgot all that the Lord had done for him in the past as he made an allegiance with Ben hadad of Aram. God sends the Prophet Hanani to rebuke Asa:
At that time Hanani the seer came to King Asa and told him, "Because you have put your trust in the king of Aram instead of in the Lord your God, you missed your chance to destroy the army of the king of Aram. Don't you remember what happened to the Ethiopians and Libyans and their vast army, with all of their chariots and charioteers? At that time you relied on the Lord , and he handed them over to you. The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What a fool you have been! From now on you will be at war." -- 2Chronicles 16: 7-9 (NLT)
Don't you remember? Don't you remember the insurmountable odds you faced and I bailed you out of? Don't you remember when you relied on me, I took care of you? What is the Lord saying to us today? The same thing! Don't you remember beloved? Don't you remember when you faced those difficult odds at that difficult time? Don't you remember how I saw you through it? Don't you remember the victories I gave you when you relied upon me? Lean not on your own understanding! Are we fully committed to Him today? Do we expect that He will be God as He always has been? Or have we become so jaded in our walk that we simply do not expect Him to come through for us anymore? What do our actions tell us?
The key verse reminds us that our expectation should only be from God. Where are we today in our expectation? If we need healing we need to approach Him with the expectation of the woman with the issue of blood -- knowing if we could just touch the hem of His garment; we will be healed. If we need deliverance from the deep valley we need to approach Him like the three Hebrew boys about to be tossed into the fiery furnace who knew that God could save them if He so desired. With every action taken for the Lord we should be expecting. When we raise our hands to worship we should expect for Him to saturate us in His presence. When we open our Bible we should be expecting God to reveal Himself to us. When we go to church we should be expecting to hear from God directly. When we pray we should be expecting God to answer. American author Edwin Louis Cole once said, " Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles. " God is still in the miracle business. Expect it.
Rev. Anthony
