Expectation v. Expectancy

I was thinking about a friend of mine, and the huge transition his life has seemed to take. So unexpectedly, so out of character for him, and so much change. From his church, which he is imbedded deeply in, and church family, to friends, co-workers, to the very place he calls home, It is all changing tomorrow. I think it takes a huge amount of courage to make changes in your life. I also believe it takes a LOT more courage to allow God to make those changes in your life. Let me explain…

When you and I decide we are going to change something…we usually decide, first of all, what we are going to change. We will then pursue the means by which we will make said changes, followed by actually carrying them out. We are allowing for a certain amount of expectation that, due to the actions we take change is inevitable, even anticipated. Now, in my opinion, that in is admirable, sometimes heroic and more often than not the only easy part about making the change is acknowledging the desire, everything else takes WORK!

So…what about those changes that we are kept in the dark about? What about the ones that the Lord is working out ahead of us before we ever get to tomorrow? The changes that gradually reveal themselves to us, usually without our input, though usually perfectly timed. Often so gradual that we may not recognize them until someone else notices first.

That is what made me think about “Expectancy” v. “Expectations”. I believe that when we live a life filled with expectations we are living a life with an agenda. We have conditioned our hearts and minds for a specific outcome and, no doubt, a great possibility for disappointment. (Perhaps a lifetime of it.) We have not usually considered other possibilities, or if we have they are so distant that they never become a real possibility in our hearts or minds. I know I have lived my life this way, and even carried certain expectations into relationships. Sometimes, they were reasonable and healthy…and at other times, they were self serving and selfish.

Expectancy…let’s take a look at this for a moment…a few glimpses at the synonyms, reveal descriptive words like, anticipation, hope, suspense, bated breath!

Anticipation!? Hope!?...BATED BREATH!? How cool is that!??!

I could not help but think about my life in Christ…has it been filled with Expectation alone? I will never say that is a bad thing…Encarta defines expectation as “A confident belief for a strong hope that a particular event will happen.” Sounds great to me! I believe we need that! I just believe that we need to believe that those “particular events” are actually for good and not evil, to give us a future and a hope!

The thing with expectation seems to me to be more about a “timing” thing. We seem to be looking at the clock…waiting…with no wiggle room for anything to occur but what we expect. (I believe we carry this into relationships and perhaps…miss great opportunities to be wonderfully surprised by the ones we love because there is less expectancy in relationships than there is expectation. I believe our relationship

with the Lord is also subject to this practice.)

So this “expectancy”, what does it mean? I mean we know what some of the synonyms are now, but what about the definition? I couldn’t wait to look up the definition. Here is what I found.

Expectancy: “Excited awareness that something is about to happen.”

Now THAT, to me, is alive! It is a state of being, and a place of hopefulness. There are no deadlines so there is no disappointment there. There is no definitive, but it leans toward the belief that something good is going to happen. At the very least SOMETHING was going to happen. (Which is what had me thinking about change). It sounds like fun. It sounds like something I want to have more of. It sounds like it is perhaps, something we need to consider as we face those daily trials, the changes life brings us as we are challenged by the uncertainty of each new day.

Don't get me wrong. I think it is fair and reasonable to have expectations and give it its' fair shot too. God’s word has revealed "God Himself" to us . We read it to learn about the author, That He spoke truth, proclaimed Himself to be God and asked that we believe in it. Not for His sake, but our own. I believe it to be true...I expect it to be true.

It’s funny how sometimes,I finally “get” things. The kind of things the Lord was probably trying to get me to understand for a long time. I mean it’s one thing to be intent on learning, and maybe even looking for answers, but quite another thing to somehow stumble upon the answers to questions you didn’t even realize you had.

Today, with a renewed sense of excited awareness that something *good is about to happen, I am going to trust that it is His perfect plan unfolding. I am going to walk confidently in the hope that is Christ, and with great expectancy. I am going to wait on Him, rest in Him and know that His timing is perfect, that change is inevitable, and when it happens, I can expect that it is all for good!