Letting Go of Our Expectation
Have you ever instantly regretted saying yes to something? Like for some reason, your mouth moved faster than your brain and you automatically agreed to something without really thinking it through?
I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been there.
These things may include, but are certainly not limited to, telling your husband you’ll work out with him at 5 am in the mornings, agreeing to help your friend move, picking up an extra shift because your co-worker really needed the day off, or entering a discipleship relationship.
Yep, that last one really happened. Let me back track.
I was a sophomore in college at EKU and very early in my walk with God. I would say that I wasn’t even a Christian yet, and was trying to balance school, work, family, friends, boys, and everything in between. However, I knew I was searching for something more. Nothing could quite fill the God-sized hole I had in my heart.
Enter Kelly.
I had joined a college ministry group called Campus Outreach during my time at EKU, which Kelly was also a part of. Now I had met Kelly before, but I wouldn’t say we had quite garnered a friendship at that time. So, when she abruptly came up to me, in true Kelly fashion, and asked, “Can I disciple you?” I had no inkling of what I was getting into when I quickly responded, “Yes.”
I’ll never fully understand what was going through my head at that time. Why did I agree to that so quickly? What the heck did “discipleship” even mean anyway?
However, one thing I do know for certain is this: I’ll never forget that night, because it was a pivotal moment in my relationship with Jesus.
I was merely looking for Jesus, but he was running after me.
After agreeing to discipleship, I immediately began questioning my friends as to what this entailed. Would we meet every week? How much time would it require? Would it be easy? Hard? Was I supposed to read something? Could I be my real self? How deep should I, or could I, go?
I can see now that I was trying to create expectations for this new relationship by setting up parameters. I didn’t want to go in blind (although frankly I blindly agreed to it). But by creating boundaries, by setting up expectations, I had my scapegoat if things went sour. I had a reason to leave the relationship if things didn’t go my way.
I think at times we also do this with God.
We have certain expectations about how our lives should go. We create goals, make plans, and try our best to execute them to lead to optimal outcomes. But what happens when our expectations, our plans, our hopes, our dreams, aren’t met by God? How do we react?
I believe we have two options:
We can continue to create expectations of God, or we can let them go and watch him work.
Like the disciples exemplified, this can be a gradual process. Over time, their expectations of Jesus were stripped down as they deepened their relationship with Him. Instead of trying to press their matters onto Jesus, they figured out that Jesus had a better plan.
Although I initially regretted my quick “Yes” to Kelly, God moved in a remarkable way through our discipleship and friendship.
When we release our expectations of how things should be, we allow God to work and leave room for what could be.
This week, consider these questions:
What expectations do I have of God?
When these expectations aren’t met, how do I react?
How can I begin to let go of my expectations of God and watch Him work?
Over the next few weeks, you can find reflections here at vineyardrichmond.com. Use them to prompt yourself to focus on your faith in a fresh way. Each week we will consider a different theme as we build up to the resurrection event. On Mondays, we will draw your attention to a biblical focus on a character in the gospel accounts. On Wednesdays, we will reflect personally on how that theme affects our spiritual lives. On Fridays, we will focus outwardly as we consider how God is inviting us to engage the world around us for his kingdom. If what you are learning is meaningful to you, click one of the share buttons at the top of these posts to share it with your friends. Let this be a time of personal reflection and careful examination of our own hearts and minds.