What are you expecting today?

Several weeks before our trip, as I was reading my devotional, the same verse continued to come to my attention. Perhaps God was trying to tell me something and I wasn't listening. I am so excited to share the "rest of the story." I love how God only gives us a small bit of the big picture. How else can He teach us expectation? I suspect that if He shared with us the whole picture, our heads would ex- or im-plode with the magnitude!

The verse...

"In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." 

Pastor Tadi

That week, I was convicted...I seem to have become pretty proficient at laying my requests before God...in the morning...in the afternoon...in the evening...all throughout the day, but I believe I had come to a place where I felt like all I did was ask, ask, ask. I know that's what we are supposed to do - to ask our Father for the desires of our heart. But, what I was convicted of that week was that I totally missed the last part of that verse. Perhaps the key to that verse.

"...and WAIT IN EXPECTATION."

This last part is a "one-two punch"...I was not at all good at waiting and for sure not waiting in expectation. Why not? When in the world did I forget that when I ask my Heavenly Father, the God of the Universe, the Creator of all things in Heaven and on Earth, the King of Kings...why would I not be willing to wait on His perfect timing and answer?  And, for goodness sake, with all the resources that God has available, that "waiting" screams expectation. How would my life change if every morning before my feet hit the ground, I expected great things to come from God.

Fast forward a couple of week and on the other side of the world, in a Guest house in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday morning, it was my day to lead our team in our Devotion as we started our day. I shared this same verse with my team and what God had been teaching me through it. As I finished up, I asked each of them what they were expecting from God for that day.

As the day unfolded, I was blessed again by the experience of something even more beautiful, something that my expectation was too small for...Sarah, our team leader shared a word of encouragement in the worship service at the FBI Church. Her word of encouragement came from a few verses: from Romans 4:20 (& 21) that says, "yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform." and from Jeremiah 33:2 & 3 where we read about Jeremiah teaching while still confined by the court guard, "Thus says the Lord...‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'"

How beautiful that the God of the Universe who knows all things would weave together the prompting I was feeling weeks before our departure and the encouragement He wanted Sarah to share into a breath-taking design surrounding the same concept - at least in my heart they all fit together perfectly!


I thank you for stopping long enough with me to expect of God in your waiting!