Whaddya' Expect?

Another good message yesterday at church. Faith was the theme, and here are a couple of things that stood out to me. First, the idea that we all have faith in something. Even an atheist has faith in the belief that there is no God. What makes me unique is not that I have faith, it's that my faith is in Christ.

Our pastor also spoke about when we have a "crisis of faith." That's when we experience doubt, which sometimes takes us all the way back to square one, asking if God even exists, or if anything we've believed is true. The statement that really hit me was how he described these times as when our "experience with God doesn't line up with our expectations of Him." You know that made me sit up and listen. I have a thing about expectations. (You can go here http://juliedahlberg.blogspot.com/2008/01/say-it-out-loud.html to see some thoughts I've posted previously about expectations...)(sorry, I am new to the blogging thing, can't figure out how to make that a link you can just click on. helpful advice welcome!)

ANYWAY, about expectations! How about that? I have expectations of God, of course I do! And His ways are not my ways, his timing isn't on my schedule, His plans don't always make sense to me. Lots of times, he blows me away in how He provides and answers prayers in ways so awesome I couldn't have even imagined them. But sometimes, I don't initially like His answers. I don't understand what He's doing. That's when the doubt can creep in.

So, as I now climb back up onto my soapbox, I gotta say again how important I think it is to verbalize our expectations. Even to God. And ask Him to show us what is reasonable, what is not. What a cool exercise to sit down and really ask myself what I expect of God. The next step would be to get into His Word, where he will show me what's in line with who He is, and what isn't. The better I know Him and His ways, the more on-the-mark my expectations will be.