Expectation

In an attempt to avoid disappointment, have you ever lowered your expectation? Maybe it was a job interview, waiting for a test score, or possibly something as simple as a birthday gift. All of us face situations in life where we think it’s best to protect ourselves from pain by choosing to not get our hopes up. But the truth is, that is no way to live. It’s certainly not the life God has planned for you.

Maybe you are in a season of life where it is hard for you to be optimistic. Maybe a marriage has failed, a relationship ended, maybe finances seem to be getting tighter and tighter. Well, let me encourage you. When you put your trust in God, your best days are ahead of you, not behind you. You were created to be the victor not the victim. God loves you, and when He looks at you, He sees a champion. He sees potential in you to do and experience greater things.

Jesus didn’t come to earth, suffer, and pay the debt of your unrighteousness so that you could settle for some average, mediocre life. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (The Message) Other translations describe the type of life Jesus came to give us as, “to the full, satisfying, and more abundant.”

We should never lower our expectations for life. We serve a great God, and He wants to do great things for us, in us, and through us.

Refuse to allow the circumstances facing you to lower your expectations. Maybe you don’t have the resources. Maybe you don’t have the education or finances. Maybe you feel like you’ve made too many mistakes. Living the abundant life Jesus paid for is not about how great you are, it’s about how great our God is.

Ephesians 3:20 tells us, “[God’s] mighty power is at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Let me encourage you to begin to dream. Raise your expectations and break free from the limits you have accepted. If God is for you, who can be against you!