What a powerful thing our thoughts are, orchestrating beliefs to such an extent that it effects the tangible world we live in
Some of the most powerful lingering forces found in our “mind’s eye” are expectations. Expectations can sometimes be our imagination’s best attempt to connect the things we hope for with some sort of tangible reality. Although expectations themselves are not necessarily a bad thing, they do have the tendency to wonder a little too far off the course of what actually is or could be.
The Devil plays sick games with us while attempting to exploit a wonderful part of our thoughts that could be used to imagine the true faithfulness of our loving Father.
Instead, we end up allowing our imaginations to sometimes create delusional pictures speculating the “what ifs,” breeding fear and paranoia in our thoughts.
I remember laying in my bed at night when I was young, becoming so stricken with fear that I wouldn’t be able to move at all. It wasn’t because someone was standing there staring at me or a creature lurking on the ceiling waiting for the right time to pounce on me . . . it wasn’t anything actually happening that had me terrified. It was all in my head as they say.
What a powerful thing our thoughts are, orchestrating beliefs to such an extent that it effects the tangible world we live in.
As I grew older, it blew my mind just how powerfully equal the effect had when I would stop those thoughts of crippling fears with the exchange of a fatal blow simply saying, “That’s not real.”
It was the Holy Spirit who taught me how to do battle in the intangible places of my thoughts. It took many gruesome fights to break through something I had struggled with for years growing up but He showed me a way to give the correct boundaries to my imagination. God has often shown me the truth here that both what I allow myself to imagine ends up directly effecting what I begin to expect.
What we think in the privacy in our minds about our lives creates the reality in which makes us who we are. We cannot compartmentalize what we think with what we do, for Jesus made it clear they are one of the same. If it is in our hearts, it is as if we have given action to it.
It works this way with the things we expect.
Our expectations, if not molded and encouraged by God, will always betray us. They will leave us disappointed towards Him for not coming through in the way we assumed would be the best and right way for Him to. Our expectations can literally leave us believing something so far from reality that it is just as long of a fall back down into disappointments.
How do we align our expectations with His reality?
We seek Him for it constantly and don't stop.
We humbly ask for His perspective as we lay our own down.
Jeremiah 29:13 shows us a part of God's heart that wants to teach us the way we ought to seek Him . . . with a desperation and with sincerely authentic intentionality. That is when we encounter Him. He speaks to us . . . and that gives us faith.
Faith comes by hearing Him as we take in what He tells us and shows us. It realigns our perspective back to the reality of what He wants for our lives. It re-adjusts our focus to meet how it is He sees the bigger picture and it gives us hope again in ways we maybe lost along the journey over time.
Faith will extinguish our unreliable expectations and replace them with reality and perspective that is true . . . that fulfills.
We long for that. We long to be met with a true reality in a world that seems to try at ever corner to create its own.
So, are you disappointed with where you are in your life right now or how things have ended up?
Go back to the last thing you heard Him say to you . . . the last thing He showed you and let your expectations align with His direction. It will bring you hope again and relinquish the once heavy burden of trying to make things work out the way you want them to.
Did something (big or small) not go the way you were thinking it would?
Even when we take a step of obedience, it is so important to leave the outcome of that step to God. Again, re-aligning our expectations with His will only free us from needless disappointments that turn into weighty burdens that turn us into frustrated angry men.
In my life lately I have had such a hard time with taking small steps of obedience. I either deem them too small to really matter much if I don’t do them, or just do them with an attitude where I am saying in the silence of my thoughts, “Where could this possibly take me that is better than where I am? Is this really worth my time?”
God is wanting me to learn that obedience doesn’t require our understanding.
It only requires our hearts and action.
James 2:14 says it beautifully when talking about what is required of us.
Our expectations will always work against us if we don’t have them constantly re-adjusted to fit what our Father is up to in our lives.
Frankly, we have no earthly idea what He is up to.
I ask Him all the time, “God, what are you doing?!”
Sometimes that question is thrown at Him in anger and frustration, while other times it is lightly tossed with a smirk knowing He can be oddly playful and mischievously loving in the surprising turns life quite often brings.
I think we all know by now the mysteriousness of God is unmatched, yet let that draw us to a place where we push everything aside to seek out for ourselves what it is He in fact is up to.
Let Him shake up our expectations to exchanging them for what He has in store for us . . . a much greater adventure than we could ever hope to expect or imagine.
-Photos taken in Garden of the Gods, CO-
