January 25, 2005
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Interesting Bible study this week on the 3rd day, but there is much to process before I can share, and we didn’t get to finish completely. A few interesting things is that there is a progression from deliverance to holiness to prosperity. And that pattern is seen all over the Bible. For example, Exodus delivered, then holiness the wandering in the wilderness to prepare for the promised land, then the promised land.
Another interesting thing that I hadn’t thought about is that the Bible starts with a wedding and ends with a wedding. Kind of cool.
I am almost done with Buchanan’s book, but here is an interesting idea that touched me.
P.149 -150 “Our lives should be lived with expectancy. Not necessarily with expectation, because expectation tends to dictate terms. The Pharisees lived with expectation and rejected Christ when He did not fit the rigid narrowness of their expectations. Often I wonder if we, waiting for Christ’s return, do it more with expectation than expectancy. Expectancy is the belief that God will do something. Expectation insists He did it in just this way. Sometimes expectation blinds us more to the God who is here right now than outright disbelief does. The Pharisees couldn’t see Jesus for looking. Or those two disciples on the road to Emmaus. There they are, bemoaning the absence of the very one who’s present with them. What made them deaf and blind? Expectations: “We had hoped He was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” But that hope took a form that shut out surprises, like crosses and resurrection and a deeper redemption.”
I think that I view God in my past with disappointed expectation. I expected Him to do something to stop my father. Expectancy would not have helped back then. I needed interaction, God striking my father dead, God stopping my father, God reaching down and comforting me, God finding me a new home earlier on, God, making my father repent, I could come up with a few actions that God could have done. Instead He did nothing. Frankly I do get puzzled at the uneveness of God’s interventions. One time he saves a life, the next time He doesn’t. But an 8 year old has a hard time understanding God not doing anything. And yet this God wants our trust and belief. Hard to think of God with expectancy in the midst of a crisis.
Sometimes I feel like a mouse in an insidious maze, one that gives a promise of hope but it is all smoke and shadows.
Heather
Comments (13)
Thank you for your words of encouragement. I enjoyed reading Pastor clean list, they are funny yet true!
Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Maria
I read your journal entry late last night/early this morning. I couldnt sleep and so got up around 2:30 am. The part about the expectancy and the expectation really struck me and has been going thorugh my head all morning as I drove my mom to the dr and back. I remember when it first struck me that life was not fair. I was flabergasted. I just assumed that the good people won out in the end. Even after my son was in the neonatal unit for two weeks after he was born fighting for his life, I figured that this was my “hard time” of life. When Alisha was diagnosed with cancer at 5 months I was devastated. I still look back on those years as my “dark years”. Very painful were they. I had “expected” my life to be one full of joy. I loved God with all my heart, loved my husband and had a great relationship with him. We were working full time in ministry to the homeless. But those things didn’t matter to the way things turned out it seems. Life was beginning to be quite unfair. When Alisha started her asthma problems and began to need to be hospitilized all the time, I just figured this was my life. When Tim was diagnosed with cancer, I thought..”you have just got to be kidding me”. And as hard as it was to see him struggle through surgery, and then the grueling radiation, I was just resigned to my life this way. I had lost hope in fairness or expectation. But I never lost sight of the fact that God was right there beside me and even though there were times when I thought I couldn’t go on, I felt Him there with me. My life is not fair and I have shattered expectations…but still I have faith and love. I searched as you did and came to my conclusions based as best I could based on the Bible and mentors and the logic of my mind. Now some may disagree with me here, but I have stopped expecting God to tamper with the known laws of nature. He set them in motion and there they stay, at our choice of course (ie mans sin choice). Death comes and birth comes. Seasons pass and men and women either hurt or love thier way through this life. Either delighting God or delighting Satan. It is the way of the world….I am glad that God gave us free choice. I delight that I can choose to worship my Savior and not HAVE to worship him… I dance my way to his throne, even when I am limping through life. The thought of being a robot or puppet is abhorent to me. So because I love my free will, I can understand and accept the choices that others make will not always be good ones. You can’t have free will without that will having the choice of being corrupted. Otherwise it wouldnt be free, it would be given/forced. I just read a great article on this: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/evil.html
Keep searching and someday you will leave the shadows of the maze and come into the sunshine.
Love…Marlene
Praying for you…………God has opened up my troubled heart…….albeit…still trials ahead……………my walk seemed longer and harder and hurt my body and soul more when I STOPPED then when I continued to walk……………….the love of all my friends and GOD showed me this…I pray the same for all……………you will see that GOD loves you so….sometimes in different ways…..but you will see it………..BLESS YOU ALWAYS………………ROBIN
This was absolutely fascinating. I can’t wait to tell my wife the part about weddings at the start and end of the bible. I so much appreciated the expectancy vs expectation. That one was new for me, but certainly made lots of sense. Certainly His ways are not our ways, and its a good thing I’m not God.
“i think sometimes we grow the most when things are not safe. You are a survivor and each minute and second that you survive gives you more of a chance to grow and change. I like the person you are becoming and I know that when you resolve issues, you will find that what you have learned in the pit will let you help others.”
Aww… thank you. I think the same applies to you, easily.
<3
Hi Heather, thanks for coming by my page.God bless you. Yes, sometimes we have to grow into things, but we must grow and growth involves time. God gives to each one of us a measure of faith, the same measure. We have got to take that measure blindly and go to God with it. In Hebrews 11, teaches that he that comes to God must believe that He is and a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and in another it says faith cometh by hearing and hearing(understanding) the word of God. You must start with that little measure and seek God. Spending time being intimate with him brings the reward of His presence in our lives. When we begin to feel His presence, we believe it all the more. Its like the relationship that we have with our children when they have not yet learned to talk, when we keep saying things over and over to them, they start trying to say what we say, and they begin to trust in what we say because they trust what we are saying is correct. That’s a child’s faith to believe without questions because they really don’t know any better. It is like that with God, when we begin to hear his word, after a while we begin to say what God says, that’s relationship building, and when we begin to speak it, it goes back into our eargate and believe it more because we have spoken His words.
As far as what you have posted, we all have questioned God at one time or another. The word says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. As far as people doing things to hurt us, that happens, but there is a word for that too, fret not yourselves because of evil does, for they soon will be cut down like grass. God’s mercy endures even for the evil doers because it is his will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. If not, then they will have a day, in his time. Personal study is essential because the Holy Spirit will help us when we begin to seek God in his word, and teach us what he meant and how to go about getting help in the time of need. It gives us faith to grow, because as we learn, we begin to speak the word in our own lives and God will honor his word. That’s what he looks for when we need him, to speak his word back to him and he says he will hasten to perform it.
So I encourage you to go to the word and get some promises of God and take them for yourself and begin to speak his word back to him concerning your life and see if you won’t grow into the woman that he has destined you to be. We have no strength in ourselves to deliver ourselves, but the word of God will bring strength and courage. I praise God for you and I pray that the Holy Spirit will quicken within you and give you peace and more understanding of his word. I love you and thank God for your honesty, keep blogging for Jesus. It is nice to meet you Heather. Sorry I am so long winded.
Angela
I read something today that you might enjoy. If you want to read the whole article you can visit the website where I copied it from.
No Greater Joy
Blooming Where We’re Planted –Beka Joy (Pearl) Anast
“If a soulless flower can give God glory by blooming regardless of circumstance, what might I do—what must I do—as a child of God?
I found this calendula blossom one morning in November. It stood shining like a beacon in the middle of a very dead garden. All the other flowers had bloomed in the golden days of summer, tossing their smiles at us every lovely day from June to September. But I cannot remember the individual glow of a single summer-day flower. They bloomed when they were supposed to, faded when expected, and died under duress like every ordinary flower in my garden.
But this blossom! This blossom is immortalized in my memory, on my screen-saver, in my photo album, on my website, and now I share its glory with tens of thousands of readers. Because it bloomed regardless of circumstances. Because it smiled at the frost like the others smiled at the sun. Because it died beautiful, its smile frozen in that last daring cheer for the God who made it.
True, the Calendula was just a flower. It had no soul on which to hang character for laud and acclaim. But if a soulless flower can give God glory by blooming regardless of circumstance, what might I do—what must I do—as a child of God?
“For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:”
I Peter 2:19-21 …”
I hope your having a good day. Blessings.
Hugs,
Patty
Expectation vs. expectancy! I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. It sets us free. The terms are so close in meaning but so far in living them out. It is like the difference between condemnation and conviction. Thanks again.
I saw a great wedding picture over at oh_captain_my_captain’s xanga site. He only posts pictures. Very cool.
Thank you so much for your prayers. Still having trouble swallowing and breathing, but at least the lungs feel clear. Fever is down and I’m feeling a little better than yesterday. Joshua’s still not doing so hot, though yesterday the doctor said his lungs are sounding much better. That, at least, is good news. It’s just been too long for a little one to be sick.
Expectancy … Expectation. I really want to read this book, but it sounds more like it’s geared toward complacent Christians than what your dealing with. I know all this is so hard for you. But I’m so glad you are continuing this conversation with God. I wish I could say for sure that it will all be resolved this side of heaven. Maybe. Just don’t give up. I keep praying for your peace.
Hey Heather…just wanted you to know that I have missed seeing you post. Is everything alright?
Marlene
You posted a very good post….I love the Expectation …Expectancy!! So many problems in our lives could be resolved with just understanding this…amen?