What Do You Expect?

I don't know about you, but I don't expect much from God. I am the master of negativity when it comes to my expectations about what God can and will do. It's not that I don't expect anything; rather, I actually expect to be disappointed, frustrated, bored, ineffective and weary. I might not say so, but my actions and reactions betray my real expectations. This is often true in my devotional time. I'll sit down with my Bible one morning after many days of not getting my devotions in before the kids wake up, and my attitude is one of "Well, it might be quiet now, but I'll just bet God only lets me have 5 minutes before Susanna comes bolting in here, so I might as well not try to read anything deep or difficult." Or lately, I've been working my way through the Old Testament, and there are many mornings when the chapter(s) for the day is(are) filled with genealogical information, or accounts of which tribe got which cities in the Promised Land. And as I notice that this is what I'll be reading for the day, the thought is that I'm about to be bored out of my mind. "Oh, yippee. Get to read a list of cities I can't pronounce. I'm gonna get a whole lot out of this one. Maybe I should just skip these chapters."

What does this say about my view of God? Well, he's little, and just about powerless, and not too interested in my daily life or thoughts. I don't like to say it, but if I really examine the beliefs that inform the way I live much of the time, that would be them.

Last week, as I was reading through Joshua, I came to the account of the crossing of the Jordan. You know, the one where the priests step in to the Jordan with the ark, and the river suddenly stops flowing and forms a wall of water all the way back at the city of Adam, and so the people cross over on dry land, and go on their merry way, and blah, blah, blah. Heard that one a hundred times. Wait, what? The river did what? Can you imagine being a citizen of Adam, and you're just going about your business, washing dishes in your kitchen and you look out the window like you might any other day, and... what in the world? There is a wall of water out there where there used to be a river. You'd probably freak out. I mean, that just doesn't happen every day. In fact, I only know of two times it did. This is a completely unnatural, extraordinary event. And who brought it about? That puny, powerless god of my own imagination? NO! The Almighty, All Powerful, All Glorious, All Sovereign All Righteous, Incredibly Creative God of the Bible! I come to a God who can stop a river in its tracks, and on top of that, made Himself into a man and died to save me, and all I expect from Him is 30 minutes of boredom and an ineffective, disappointing rest of the day? I must be crazy!

So lately, when I sit down to read the Bible, before I read anything or get any stupid ideas about certain passages being boring and worthless, I start with asking God to make me expectant, not of disappointment, but of all the wonderful things in His Word, things that the Holy Spirit can teach me even through genealogies. And reading with eyes looking out for God to work, I'm amazed at things that I learn from a passage that is primarily a description of land distribution!