What Are You Expecting?

It is a little hard for me to believe that it is June already!  In another week we will have been living in North Carolina for a full month!  It seems like it was just yesterday when we were focusing on the upcoming Holiday season and the Lord suddenly interjected the thoughts of a move across the country!  I guess that is how He tends to work with me!  It was similar to how He introduced the idea of uprooting the family and moving them to Oklahoma back in June of 2004, during the first night of the conference my wife, daughter and I were attending at the Rhema USA campus in Broken Arrow Oklahoma.  And come to think of it… my first reaction to both was about the same!  It was an incredulous idea!

As I look back at the Oklahoma experience along with all its ups and downs, I can vividly see the good fruit of our obedience to the Lord in His call to “Go ye!” (Matthew 28:19 KJV)  Now as we are in the beginning stages of His latest mission for us, I have great expectations of the same here in our new home in the southeastern United States!

Life can be an exciting adventure when you keep your thoughts and hopes filled and focused on the expectations of the goodness of God working in and through you on a daily basis.  I was thinking earlier today about some of the many lessons I have learned on faith over the last few years.  One of the biggies has been to make sure that my trust is in the Miracle Worker and not in the miracle.

This was one of those frustrating events that I repeatedly saw happening with some of the Christian friends and acquaintances we fellowshipped with.  One week they would see my wife prayed over and would excitedly rejoice at her healing only to be back at square one the next week when they could see no physical manifestation of the healing.  Hebrews 11:1 clearly contradicts this behavior by defining faith as that which “assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot (yet) see.”  (God’s Word ©)

In Matthew chapter fourteen there is the story of the people coming to Jesus to receive their healings.  What is interesting to me is the use of the words knowledge and touch in verses 35 and 36.  Both of these words indicate an intimate closeness, attachment to, or oneness with Jesus.  The men who went through the countryside to bring the sick to Jesus didn’t just “recognize” who He was as some translations put it, but had an intimate, experiential knowledge of who He was!  Those who “touched” Jesus and received their healing also came to Him from a heart of faith that was at one with Him!  The miracle that they received was an offshoot of their oneness, their close connection to Him!  They came seeking more of Jesus and received a miracle!

That’s the focus I want to keep developing in me.  Isn’t that what you want as well?  I think that this is really being what they call “in Christ.”  It is being one with Him just as a husband and wife become “one flesh” in act of marriage (see: Matthew 19:5-6).  Having that oneness is what drives our daily expectations and keeps them constant and increasingly vibrant in our lives!  Have a great week!  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What or Whom am I EXPECTING to day?”