“Dear Jesus,
help me to release any expectations I have when when spending time with you. Help me to remember and know that spending time with you can be just that, sitting and soaking in your presence. You don’t ALWAYS have to speak to me in that still, small whisper. Help me to come away from my time with you rejoicing, regardless of if I think I heard your voice or not. I want to come to you everyday with no expectations so I go away joyful from whatever happens during our time. Having expectations is putting you in a box and I do NOT want to do that, because you are so much bigger and greater than what my small human mind can expect from you. So, I want to sit and spend time with you all the time, maybe you’ll want to speak and maybe you’ll want to be silent. Whatever the case, I’ll take it and I’ll run with it. Thanks for always being there.”
This is a recent journal entry I had during my quiet time with God. Throughout Ecuador I struggled with not hearing the voice of the Lord as often or as easily as I did in Africa. After talking to a very wise person in my life about it and having her shed light on the situation, I realized that I was unknowingly setting expectations on my time with the Lord, resulting in me setting expectations on Him altogether. So I decided to sit down and ask Him to help me get rid of those expectations. When we have expectations of the Lord we can and probably will walk away not as satisfied as we want to be. The reality is, He’s going to speak to us however and whenever He wants and we should have open hearts and minds to that all of the time. I realized that I was setting the expectation that I should hear the still, small voice of God every time I sat down to spent intentional time with Him and that’s just not always going to be the case. The truth is, He’s probably been speaking to me in different ways this whole time and I haven’t completely realized it because a I’ve been so fixated on hearing the His voice and only His voice. Honestly, He just wants to spend time with me and I want to do the same with Him. That could very well just look like sitting there, in His presence, and hanging out with Him. So, it’s something I’ll have to work on daily and ask for help in all the time, but I want to come to the Lord and be ready for however He wants to speak to me that day and just soak in His presence and in His love.
