"Take the very hardest thing in your life - the place of difficulty, outward or inward, and expect God to triumph gloriously in that very spot. Just there He can bring your soul into blossom." -- Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross
"Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain." ― Elisabeth Elliot, These Strange Ashes
Surely there is a future [and a reward], And your hope and expectation will not be cut off. Proverbs 23:18 (AMP)
I think God is showing me that my expectation has been for bad things to happen. When so much bad has happened in your life you start just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next bad thing. I don't "expect God to triumph gloriously." I just hope I can make it to the end.
I think what you expect reveals your faith. Hope and expectation are intrinsically linked in the Bible. The Hebrew word frequently translated "hope" is tiqvah (תִּקְוָה ). It's usage in the Bible is "expectation or expected, hope, hope of life or living, thing that I long for," but the word literally means "a cord."1 The first place it is used in the Bible is Joshua 2:18 where Rahab is instructed to hang a scarlet cord in her window.2 Her expectation was in the promise given by the spies that when the Israelites came into the city, she, and her family taking refuge in her home, would be saved. But her hope had to be that the spies were as good as their word.
"Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24
The word translated "believe" and "believes" here is pisteuó. It means "to entrust a thing to one, i.e., to his fidelity ... absolutely to trust in Jesus or in God as able to aid either in obtaining or in doing something."
If I believe that God is a good God, who cares for me and is bending down to hear my prayer, then my expectation should be for good. My expectations, however, have revealed deep doubt. Jesus says I could throw the mountain into the sea if there was not doubt in my heart.
This believing that Jesus is talking about is not magic. It is not "manifesting reality." It is not faith in my ability to have enough faith, or faith in my ability to think good things into being. Nor is it "faith in faith" as A.W. Tozer put it. This is faith in God – absolute trust. This is confidence in his character, in his essence, in his very self. A piece of scarlet string in itself is nothing and cannot save anybody. Want to hear something startling?
"… my faith does not rest on God's promises. My faith rests upon God's character. Faith must rest in confidence upon the One who made the promises." -- A.W. Tozer, Faith Beyond Reason
Wow, does that ever change everything! If my faith is only in the promise, if I harbor a secret distrust of the Father himself, I am stuck in doubt, disappointment and even anger at him. I will cry out with Jeremiah, "Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?" (Jeremiah 15:18-19), or Job, "Why have you made me your target?" (Job 7:20).
But if my faith relies "in confidence upon the One who made the promises," the good God, the loving Father, the comforting Spirit, the faithful Bridegroom, then I can give him "the very hardest thing in my life," lean back upon his great breast, and know. I can rest in expectation, even when there is a "stunning array of evidence" around me to the contrary.
"Beware, in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask or think. Each time you intercede, be quiet first and worship God in his glory. Think of what He can do, of how He delights to hear Christ, of your place in Christ; and expect great things." -- Andrew Murray, in Thoughts for the Quiet Hour, edited by D. L. Moody
"What Jesus teaches is too simple and too wonderful for those who want magic in their religion." -- Eugene C. Kennedy, The Choice to Be Human
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory … Ephesians 3:20-21
1All definitions from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, HELPS Word-studies, and/or Thayer's Greek Lexicon.
2Read more about Rahab's cord here: Grab On
Image, Scarlet Cord, by Jon Marlow https://flic.kr/p/hJzfDj
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