Living to Expect

Have you ever had a common word, a word you have heard more times than you can count,  all the sudden make you sit up straight and listen?  A word that once you look more closely at makes your eyes grow wide and your lips part as you realize your chin is dropping to the ground?  A word that just might have become a game changer in the way you look at it ever again?

For me this happened recently with the word EXPECT.  As the end of 2014 drew to a close I was struggling with life situations.  I was at a quandary as to how I was to proceed with 2015 regarding a passion and purpose.  Frankly things just seemed ho hum and I didn't know how or where to place my next step so I began praying for God to show me a word to study or something that would direct me or even restore a passionate life.

Not knowing where to really begin I grabbed my Bible…OK I know that is where you always begin but I didn't know how to “hear” which word God had for me.  I turned to the concordance in the back and started reading aloud the words found there.  Starting in the A’s I would read a word then jotted it down and thinking halfheartedly, “Well I could do this one.” 

Page after page, I sat jotting down words that were safe in my mind.  Sitting at my kitchen table I was combing through the alphabet…A…B…C and so on until I reached the end of E.  The word Expect struck a chord.  I tried to flip the page and go on to F but it was like God wouldn't let me pass that word.  I know then that God’s word for me was EXPECT. 

Expect: a verb meaning to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of.

I know what you might be thinking here…”Um… Cynthia, this is no news alert. We know that definition.”  I agree!  I knew that meaning as well but what I didn't know was the Hebrew and Greek meanings of the words that were translated into English as expect.

When reading the original meanings of the word I sensed a deeper pulling of the words. Within the definitions came the gripping words of hope, intense anticipation, apprehension, earnest expectation, wait, that thing I long for and looking hopefully in a particular direction.  But the one that struck me odd until I dug further was “a cord as an attachment.”  Where in the world did that come from and how did it fit?

Over the next few weeks we will look at this word expect. Digging in and hoping to find more of a reason to expect.

Are you expecting something?  

Have you given up expecting something from God?

Edwin Louis Cole says, “Expectancy is the atmosphere of miracles.”

Father, I pray that you will teach us to expect you more, to place all our hope quietly before you.  For everything that we long for is in you, O God, alone.