The world race and AIM talk a lot about expectations. They say ditch your expectations on the world race. Expectations can ruin a moment, a day, a relationship. Routes will change (yep, in our case from south african countries to Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia). Expectations take away from us being fully present. And it’s so true. So many times we have this expectation in our mind of how something should go, how someone should act, how a month of ministry should go. God answers a prayer in a different way than we wanted or expected. People change or situations don’t pan out how we expect, so we’re disappointed. We’re disappointed because we’re comparing our imagined plan with God’s plan.
I’ve definitely been learning this firsthand. The Lord has been teaching me about ditching my own agenda and trading it in for His a lot these past couple months.
I think I have this great plan of what my life will look like, on the race, after the race, even daily. But if there’s one thing the race is good for, it’s teaching you to not have these expectations.
The second day we were in Thailand, one of my teammates- Simone and I met a girl who works at a local coffee shop. She quickly opened up to us about her life, a history of brokenness and abuse. Her story broke my heart, but a sweet friendship quickly came about. Our friend came here to Chiang Mai 9 months ago, not one of her family members knows she is here, and she knows no one except her coworkers here in Chiang Mai. God put her on our hearts immediately, and we felt like we should keep pursuing her friendship. We hung out with her a number of times when she wasn’t working (she works 10 am to 10 pm every single day, with no days off!).
Earlier this week, the coffee shop owner’s girlfriend had been awful to her, and we found out this has been going on for a while. A few days ago, we found out that she quit her job. We had been praying that she could maybe live and work at Zion, so we felt like this was totally a sign! She met with Emmi (our host & founder of Lighthouse in Action) and was offered a job and safe place to live. We were so excited that she was going to have this chance to not be in an abusive working and living environment! We knew God had wonderful plans for our sweet friend, and we thought that meant working at Zion.
Then, last night we found out that she decided to take the bus back to Bangkok, where she is from and where she experienced such pain with her family. I was so disappointed. My teammates and I saw that God had this amazing plan for her, this open door, this opportunity. But for whatever reason, she chose not to walk into it.
Our team had breakfast with Emmi today and she reminded us that you can’t mess with free will. For whatever reason, our friend chose not to take the opportunity at Zion.
But the Lord is reminding me that I can’t have expectations about how God will work through someone’s situation. God isn’t confined to one opportunity. He is constantly pursuing us, so He will work through anything. God has a great agenda for our friend. He has a plan for all of his children.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares The Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”. JEREMIAH 29:11
Our plans are nothing compared to the plans of the King. We can’t control anything. We have to just throw our plans and expectations to the wind, and simply expect Him to show up.
The only expectation we should have is the expectation that God WILL show up.
We can expect Him to move simply because of who He is.
He will work through our crap, our brokenness, our struggles, the worst parts of ourselves, the hopeless situations.
“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly”. PSALM 5:3
So we wait on the Lord and His plans because they are greater. We wait with the knowledge that He is good, and the expectance that He will show up.
God is so good. if you’re reading this, know that He loves you with an everlasting, sustaining love. He loves you and he has a plan for your life, a plan that is so much greater than anything you’ve ever expected!
