Expecting

I have found that most of the time, the Lord brings something around once. Then, maybe months or years later, He’ll bring it around again. When it’s time for me to really get it, though, He’ll bring it around day after day and week after week, from one source and another, and in one way and another, until I really do get it. Fortunately for all of us, He is that patient, because it isn’t until we really get it, or understand it, that "it" can bear fruit in our lives.

One of the things that comes round and round these days is expectation. At one point I got burned out on expecting, but in hindsight, I think that was primarily because I was expecting of the wrong source. I thought this person and that person would do this or that, and boy, did I learn otherwise. At times I even expected God Himself to do this or that, and was disappointed.

The prophet Isaiah said, "enlarge the place of your tent ... do not hold back." Why would you enlarge the place of your tent? Because you were expecting. The interesting thing about this particular passage is that it is spoken to a woman who has never had children. When you’ve never experienced growth, or when you’ve hoped and hoped and been disappointed over and over again, why on earth would you enlarge the place of your tent? Because there is a word from the Lord. He says, "you’re going to have more children than all the women around you whom you’ve watched, year after year, giving birth to children."

I can’t speak for you, but I’ve been there. I’ve watched this business start up and grow like crazy and prosper almost instantly, and I’ve watched that business do the same thing. Mine? Year after year, nothing. I’ve watched people in ministry become in demand rapidly, and I’ve watched kids half my age find their soul mate. Me? Ha! So why expect anything other than what I’ve always had? Why be disappointed again?

But when the Lord has spoken, you won’t be disappointed again. And, what’s more, if you don’t enlarge the place of your tent, you are going to miss out on the great things that the Lord would like to do for you and through you.

I believe the scariest step for me is not in stepping out and taking some action that I feel the Lord is telling me to take. For some reason, that makes me feel very alive, but not afraid. What scares me the most is committing mentally to embracing what I believe the Lord is promising. This is the tent that must be enlarged. I have to expand my thinking. I have to abandon the natural scheme of things, and expect miracles. I may not know exactly what, where, when, or how, but I can tell you that if I didn’t believe God would do miracles, I’d be miserable.

Instead, I’m expecting.

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