Somewhere along the line during high school I started being really disappointed in any and all plans that were being made. I thought we would go do something awesome and no one would show or they just were not into it. This went on for quite some time and I hit my limit one New Year's Eve. I went home at 11 feeling crushed and I did not want to feel that way ever again. So I started to teach myself to have no expectations. To not hope that something I wanted was going to turn out well.
That worked for a bit. But, the catch is, when you have no expectations you can only have two outcomes. Things can go well or it could still suck. So half of the time I was still disappointed even if my hopes were not up before hand. I do not know what at the time was causing me to feel so caught up in this, but I just didn't want to be sad about things that should have been fun. So I changed my expectations again.
I decided that it would be better if all the time I had crappy expectations. I told myself that things were going to be disappointing in advance. This way I was either right and not surprised or, I was wrong and things were better than I thought. This new method became my go-to. As I got older I let some of it go. But, I would notice, if there was something I really wanted I would go back to it. The big things, the ones I wanted with my whole heart, the ones I knew would crush me if they did not turn out how I had hoped, I put them in the crappy expectations category.
I had decided on the World Race. I knew without a doubt that this is what my heart wanted. I was so scared that this would not be God's plan for me. I did not want to be crushed. Even when I felt God tell me that this was His plan for me I struggled to let myself have anything other than crappy expectations.
I was leaving church one day and saw a friend on my way out. I had told him about the race and that I was applying. He also knew the different ways God was working in me that led me to believe that this was where I was going. He asked me about the race. I hemmed and hawed and basically said that I did not want to get myself too excited without an official yes from my application. He stopped me, put his hands on my shoulders, and told me he didn't think God would be putting false expectations in my head. My friend was the wake up call I needed.
I want to be excited, I want to be able to have amazing expectations, and I want to be wrong when God blows what I thought was going to happen out of the water with something even more beautiful. I want to learn to not be disappointed when things do not meet my expectations, but rest in the fact that God has something so much better for me.
I have been thinking a lot about what my expectations are for the World Race. I expect to be in awe when I see the places and people God has made. I expect to be surprised as I experience new things across the globe. I expect to be blow away by the way God will move in this experience. I expect I will become a different, better person for letting God use me to serve others around the world.
