Expect Good Things

Is it just me or does it seem like more than ever the world is telling us to lower our expectations?  It's almost as if the only way to not be disappointed to expect so little out of life.  Last year seemed to be a year where I found myself expecting to be disappointed. I would get into a situation where something good might happen, but instead of preparing for the good stuff I prepared myself for it to fail. Whatever it was I assumed that it wouldn’t work out. I began to say things like “put it on my tab” or “when it rains it pours”.

This in no way to live!  When 2013 ended I sort of felt like I wasn’t living, I felt like I was surviving. This is not what I had anticipated for my life, my marriage, my children or for my ministry. So as the new year began to dawn I began to hear the sweet whisper of the Holy Spirit. I began to feel the breath of new life into my dreams and into my heart. He began to speak to me in a still small voice, He told me to start expecting good things. Seems easy enough doesn’t it?

So as Matt and I  begin to believe that God is moving in our lives and we begin to feel a stirring for greatness, I find myself expecting good things to happen and guess what? Good things started happening. Little by little we began to see good things start happening.

Just as easily as the Holy Spirit whispers to me there are other whispers. The kind of whispers that tell me to be hurt, they tell me we will fail, they tell me God can’t use us, not every day but some days I have to wake up and decide to expect good things. Some days I have to tell the voices in my head to hush up and I have to begin to worship and pray. I find myself talking to myself and telling myself that God knows the plans He has for me, they are to prosper me and to give me a future and hope. Just as easily as I hear the negative I start to have faith to believe for the positive.

Expecting good things does not mean that things will never be hard, it doesn’t mean we will never struggle, but I think it does mean that we will make it. We will keep on moving forward, we will choose not to give up. Expecting good things is really setting yourself up for a big fall, choosing to believe the unthinkable, choosing to believe that God would do amazing things on your behalf is a crazy way to live!

But as I read my bible I began to realize God is in the business of doing the unthinkable when people ask him to. From Genesis to Revelation God did the miraculous on behalf of his people, He did what was unthinkable because people had faith.

Faith has taken on a whole new meaning in my life. I used to sort of think it was just believing in God. The Bible says “have faith in God”. I have gotten a new revelation of faith, it’s not just believing that God exists, it’s believing without a doubt that He can be trusted to keep his promise. Having faith means that there is no doubt in my mind that the dreams God has put in my heart will happen. It is holding tightly to hope, gripping it for dear life. It means putting yourself in a position to believe God for greatness, to go all in, to put all your chips on the table and trust that God will not let you fall. It means getting yourself in such a position where people will look and say look what God has done, look at how amazing God is.

I used to be the type of person that believed if God spoke it to me it would happen and somewhere along the way I sort of stopped, I stopped expecting God to do good things. This year however, I have faith that God is going to do the unthinkable, simply because I asked Him to and then had the audacity to believe that He would do it. I am going to expect good things, I am going to choose each day to have faith in God.

I think it’s the safest option don’t you?