I’m a thinker, a planner. I always have been. My thoughts are always in the future. I want to know what tomorrow holds. I want to know what next month is going to look like. I want to know what I will be doing after the race. And then after that. My gaze is always fixed forward. Rarely, am I just resting in the present situation. And while there are a multitude of problems with this kind of mindset, the notion of expectations has been at the forefront of my thinking these last three months.
The race is nothing like I expected. At training camp, I distinctly remember hearing that we should abandon our expectations for this year. Easier said than done. Fast forward to month one, where my expectations and my reality came to a head-on collision. Everything about that month was different than I anticipated, and for so much of the month, I clung to what I wanted the month to look like. I missed out on what God was doing because I was too busy comparing my reality to what I wanted out of the month. And at the end of month one, I made a resolve to accept each situation, each moment, as it came. I wanted to live in contentedness.
Here I am, month three, sitting on a couch in a beautiful home, running off of the three cups of coffee I had earlier, and in such a different place than I expected to be. Both physically and spiritually. The Lord is walking me through a season of identity right now, and I so desperately want to move through it. I want to know what I need to do to come out on the other side. But what I am learning is to relinquish control and release all expectations. I read this quote, and couldn’t summarize my thoughts any clearer:
“My disappointment or satisfaction with a situation rests entirely on what I expected to happen.” –Emily P. Freeman
When I plan and expect a situation to look one way, and it doesn’t, I am disappointed. I don’t want to live in constant disappointment, because rarely, does our life look like what we expect. So I am learning to surrender. To surrender my desire to fix what I think needs to be fixed internally. I’m learning to surrender this season of growth to the Lord for his perfect timing. To surrender the expectations I have for the big and small moments in life. And what I am finding, is that I am experiencing Jesus much more in this way of living. When I sit back and wait expectantly, Jesus moves. When we wait expectantly rather than wait with expectations, we honor and glorify all that God is doing in our lives. We say to Him, I trust in your plans and your sovereignty more than my own plans. We live out Psalm 62:5.
“My soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him.”
And while this way of living expectantly rather than with expectations is difficult, there is no comparison to the other alternative, for Jesus’ way is infinitely more than anything I could hope or dream.
