Expectations

Expectations. You can really get into a pickle with expectations. Emotions can run you ragged with expectations. That was my experience a couple of weeks ago. Setting and trusting in expectations can frustrate!

Our recent experience of buying a house was a huge learning experience … in not setting expectations. Even though you may be told one thing (to expect a certain thing to happen within a certain time frame) by those “in the know,” we learned that those things don’t go as we were told they would. I likened it to setting a due date for baby to be born. Well, by golly, that baby is going to come when he is ready, regardless of one’s due date!

I’m not a “laid back” kind of person. However, I think I’ve come to understand (hopefully it will stick) that it is best not to get one’s hopes up, ie: set expectations, when it comes to dealing with things in life. Relax; take things in stride. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts …!” Literally or figuratively, that “baby” is going to come when he is ready!

Our “baby”, that is, the closing on our new house, came “in the fullness of time”, so to speak! We are in the house now and slowly getting settled. Soon—sooner than we realize—this strange place will become “home” to us. We are already enjoying it

Tonight Randy and I will have a special dedication of this house. We will take a bottle of wine and make a drink offering to the Lord, pouring the wine out, dedicating this place to God. Thanking Him for His great kindnesses to us and praying for His protection and blessing on us and our children and grandchildren. Dedicating ourselves to the Lord, to loving and serving Him. To using what He gives us to do His work, furthering His Kingdom. Not ours. His. For what we have in material possessions is not for us, though we benefit from and enjoy it; it is given to us to be stewards of God’s possessions, to do with as He determines. May we never forget that truth.

Expectations. Only one thing can we stake our lives on; only one thing can we base expectations on and not be disappointed: the Word of God.  The words of man may fail, but the Word of God will never fail.