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“Living With Great Expectations”

1 Peter 1:3-4 NLT

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

I think it’s safe to say we have all had many past experiences with having high expectations in various situations only to have those hopes dashed away for whatever reasons. 

You visit a fast food place, restaurant or have a meal delivered that someone spoke highly of and recommended, but then you end up having terrible service or food that was cold and tasted terrible.

You go see a movie that you’ve waited so long to see, but then you are so disappointed in the plot and are let down for spending the time and money.

You buy a product from a store that you’ve heard so much about and are excited to finally try, but then it turns out to be a piece of junk and you’re left broken-hearted from the anticipation you once had.

We’ve all been let down like this in some way or another and we often get tired of having great expectations of something turning out good only to have a completely opposite experience.  We all had great expectations for a great year in 2020, but we learned that anything can happen at any time to completely blow our minds in various ways.

Sometimes it’s really hard to live with great expectations after a very crazy 2020 and now with all that’s happened this year so far.  We tend to be hesitant to have great expectations and wonder sometimes if we should get excited about things.  Well, if they are worldly things, we better be prepared to get let down and not have high hopes.  However……if our expectations are a different and we focus instead on things not of this world, then we may just be in luck! 

We can have great expectations in our hope with God and He will never disappoint!  That’s not to say hard times won’t come, but He will never let us down.  We can rejoice and have great expectations to know that we have a priceless inheritance in Christ!  When the world lets us down, we always have Christ to trust and rely on.  He has given us new life and that life in Him is filled with great expectations! 

In Christ, we can always live with great expectations!

Weekly Devotional Blog Site www.zwdevotions.com

“Trusting Vs. Trusting”

Proverbs 3:5 NLT

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.

Sunday morning before last, I found myself waking up to a very abnormal side pain.  I’ve had side pains before, but this did not feel at all like any that I’ve had before, especially that it started in the middle of the night.  That Sunday, I went from an Urgent Care visit to the ER awaiting the removal of my appendix because I had early appendicitis.  I still remember the shock feeling that came over me when the doctor called to say the CT scan confirmed it was appendicitis and that I needed to head to the ER to get ready for surgery.

As I waited through the early afternoon, I was being tested in various ways and prepped for my surgery.  What I most appreciated is that I was being prepared mentally for what was about to happen.  I didn’t know any of the people taking care of me, but I just fell into a “trust” feeling when I was being told that I would be taken great care of and that it would most likely be a very successful surgery.  I was still nervous, but after they did all they could to prepare me mentally, it put me at ease knowing I would be sedated and then wake up without an appendix hurting.

After I woke up and have continued my days of healing up to now, I have been thinking everyday about the whole idea of trusting that day.  I was not only realizing how much I put all my trust in what the medical personnel was doing that day to tend to my care, but I couldn’t help to think about how I so often do not trust in God as much as He promises to take care of my life.  That thought has stuck with me and got me thinking a lot.

As I mentioned before, I tend to feel more at ease and trust more when things are explained to me and I can understand what I’m about to experience.  Being prepared does a great deal for me.  However, God does not always work this way.  He so often does not explain things to us and, instead, asks us to completely trust in Him when things do not make sense and when we don’t understand things at all. 

I trusted in the medical personnel because I was mentally prepared beforehand, but my trust should always ultimately be in God Who always provides and takes care of me.  He often asks us to completely trust in Him when we have no idea what is ahead and what we are about to experience.  That can cause some major anxiety!

My challenge for all of us is to consider how much we trust God in situations that are really challenging and in which we are totally blind to what might be ahead.  Do we trust God no matter what and not depend on our understanding?  Trusting in Him is everything.

Weekly Devotional Blog Site www.zwdevotions.com

“Fixed On The Positive”

Philippians 4:8 NLT

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

We all have had and still have our very fair share of times when we don’t focus on the positive aspects of life and what God has given to us.  We have days when things are going great and we do nothing but lift up praises. Then….there are the days when nothing seems to be going right and there honestly isn’t an ounce of anything close to praise coming from our lips.  We all have these times and if you don’t, you’re not a real human being! 

We all know that in the past year before 2021 hit, we had a year that was very challenging to focus on positive things.  It was filled with events we never thought would ever occur.  They came and we all were challenged to reconsider so many different things in life.  It was easy for any of us to lose our focus on the positive with the pandemic, the riots, the election and now with what has already happened to start off the year. 

Friends, there are so many things that would give us reason to focus on anything but positive things.  It often seems so easy to pick out the bad things happening in life, but that’s where the enemy wants us to be.  He wants us to be constantly thinking of negative things and not be filled with the positive things that God has done and continues to do in us, through us and all around us.

I would like to encourage all of us to take a few moments now and each day after, how we can take a step back, rethink all of the words we may be spewing out to others each day via social media to express our opinions, and remember that Paul highly encouraged not only the church in Philippi, but us as well today that we need to focus on the positive things God has done and continues to do. 

It is a daily challenge and one we must fully embrace if we are to shine the light of Christ around us to others.  Do people really need to hear our opinions or do they need to know the love of Christ?  Ouch!  Tough pill to swallow.  Does that mean we’re not allowed to share our opinions?  No, but it does mean that we often need to consider what we are focusing on and what our mission is each day of life.  Are we going to choose to be fixed on the positive and all that God has done and continues to do?  Or are we going to focus on making sure that everyone knows how we feel about things going on around us? 

We all need to take a deep breath, think about what we are sharing with others, and consider if what we are sharing is really spreading the true love of Christ.  Paul tells us to fix our thoughts on all that is excellent and worthy of praise.  Good advice!

Weekly Devotional Blog Site www.zwdevotions.com

“It’s Right In Front Of You”

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Last year, I remember a funny moment when I went to find something in the pantry at home.  I looked for it and made a comment about not finding it.  My oldest daughter comes to join in at the pantry door, looks right in front of me, grabs it and says, “Dad, it’s right here in front of you!” as she laughed.  I think I said something to the effect of “Of course!  You find it right away!” as I laughed as well.

We have all had our fair share of times in life when we look for so long for something and someone else somehow happens to come to our aid and finds it almost immediately!  How can that be?  How in the world can we so often miss what’s right in front of us?  How can we be that blind?  We look everywhere, but……how carefully are we really looking?  Are we looking quickly and missing what is right in front of us?  Many times we are.

In the past years, when we’ve asked our girls to find something in their rooms, we have often joked that they go to the door, glance quick and come back saying they can’t find whatever we asked them to look for. 

As I mention these examples, I think about the things God puts right in front of us so often that we miss.  He is daily putting reminders all around us and so often we are so focused on the things we want to see and our own agendas that we totally miss exactly what He has clearly put in our path.  We get so set on our own thinking, our own agendas and our own ideas and we completely miss the great blessings God has put in clear view for us. 

I know that we have all been very consumed in one way or another this past year and even into the New Year, with uncertainty and chaos that has been in our lives.  It’s been easy to focus so much on all the chaos and fear that easily settles in our path and forget that God is abundant with His constant blessings. 

Sometimes, it’s so easy to dwell on the past and former things in our lives and we lose sight of what is right in front of us that God wants us to see.  Some of us are great at dwelling on the past and that blinds us to what God is trying to show us now.  God is making a way if we will just stop trying so hard in our own ways and focus on Him.  If we just slow ourselves down to take a deep breath and let Him lead, we will be so surprised at what we find right in front of us. 

As we continue into this New Year, why don’t we become better at letting Him lead, slowing down, and letting Him open our eyes more to what is right in front of us.  His blessings are all around us!  Do we see them?

Weekly Devotional Blog Site www.zwdevotions.com