A Life of Expectancy

by Jennifer Greene-Sullivan

As our Sunday service came to a close, I stopped to speak to a good friend. She and her husband had just celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary, so I asked her how it went. I fully expected the peppy response I usually get from my very peppy friend. Instead, I got something entirely different.

She began telling me about expectations. Over the years, she had come to believe that expectations often breed disappointment, discord, and resentment. Because of that, she said she tries not to have expectations anymore. Without them, she can simply receive the blessings that come her way and be content with them.

I stood there with my mouth slightly agape and my eyebrows raised. Beside me, Sophia apparently noticed my expression and decided I needed a little assistance. “Mama, I believe you need to hear this,” she said. I just smiled.

What I did not say was what immediately screamed through my mind:

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

For the next two days, however, I kept thinking about that conversation. Maybe Sophia was right, and maybe I did need to hear what my friend had to say. Not necessarily because I needed to agree with everything she said, but because I needed to examine what I actually believe about expectations. Somewhere in that examination, I realized we were talking about two very different things.

There is a tremendous difference between placing expectations on people and living with expectancy toward God. People will disappoint us because people are human, and I am certainly no exception. When I demand that another person fulfill a script I have written for him or her, I create fertile ground for disappointment and resentment. In that respect, my friend is right.

My hope was never meant to rest in the ability of another human being to meet all my expectations. Jeremiah warns against making flesh our strength when our hearts should be turned toward the Lord (Jeremiah 17:5). People cannot carry the weight of expectations that were never theirs to bear. Sometimes love requires us to release them from that burden.

But relinquishing my expectations of people does not mean relinquishing my expectancy of God. I do not expect God to follow a script I have written or arrange every circumstance according to my preferences. I expect something far greater than that. I expect God to be God.

I expect Him to be faithful because He says He is faithful. I expect Him to redeem because He is my Redeemer, and I expect Him to provide because He is my Provider. I expect Him to move because Scripture reveals a living and active God who is continually at work. I expect miracles, and I see them regularly.

That does not mean I get to dictate what those miracles must look like. Expectancy is not entitlement, and faith does not hand God my carefully constructed itinerary and demand that He follow it. His ways are higher than mine, and His understanding extends far beyond what I can see from where I am standing. I can expect Him without presuming to control Him.

Besides, my lack of expectation has never limited God anyway. God is not powerful because I believe He is powerful, nor does He become sovereign when I acknowledge His sovereignty. My faith does not enlarge Him, and my doubt cannot diminish Him. He is God.

Expectancy changes my posture, not His power. Isaiah tells us that those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength and “mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31, ESV). There is expectancy in that kind of waiting because biblical waiting is not spiritual resignation. It is a face turned toward God in confidence that He is still working even when I cannot see what He is doing.

Sometimes that expectancy carries us straight through a fire rather than around it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew God was able to deliver them from Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, but they also declared that even if He did not, they still would not bow (Daniel 3:17–18). They had complete confidence in God’s ability without demanding a particular outcome from Him. That is expectancy without entitlement.

Faith says that I know what my God can do, but I trust who my God is even when He does not do what I expected. That distinction matters because Christian expectancy does not promise a life without suffering, disappointment, grief, or unanswered questions. Jesus Himself showed us that resurrection does not eliminate the cross. We cannot preach Sunday morning without remembering Friday afternoon.

Gethsemane happened, Golgotha happened, and the tomb happened. Jesus experienced anguish, suffering, death, and three days when His followers could not see what God was doing. Yet none of those things got the final word. Resurrection did.

That is why I cannot embrace a life without expectancy. I live on the other side of an empty tomb, and that truth changes the way I look at everything else. I have been raised with Christ into new life, and I have watched God restore things that once looked impossible to restore. How could I experience His faithfulness and then decide to expect nothing?

I have watched Him redeem broken places, answer prayers, open doors, close others, and provide in ways I never anticipated. I have experienced His presence when circumstances gave me every reason to believe I was alone. Again and again, God has reminded me that what I can see is not the limit of what He can do. My circumstances have limitations, but my God does not.

I can therefore be content with what God has placed in my hands today while remaining completely expectant about what He may do tomorrow. Contentment does not require me to stop believing for restoration, healing, provision, or breakthrough. Expectancy does not require me to despise today’s portion while waiting for something more. There is room in faith for both.

Contentment says, “God is enough for me here.”

Expectancy says, “And I cannot wait to see what He does next.”

Ultimately, my expectancy stretches far beyond anything I hope God will do during this earthly life. Scripture tells us that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven and that those who belong to Christ will be caught up together to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). I believe those words as surely as I believe the promises God has already fulfilled. My faith is pointed toward a coming King.

I expect resurrection, restoration, and eternity in His presence. I expect one day to rise to meet my Savior in the air. Those are not positive affirmations I created to make myself feel better about an uncertain future. They are expectations anchored in the promises of God.

So no, I do not want to build my life around expectations of people. My friend reminded me Sunday that there is wisdom in releasing others from the burden of becoming everything I think they ought to be. Perhaps Sophia was right when she told me I needed to hear what my friend was saying. Apparently, Mama did need to hear it.

But something happened before that Sunday conversation.

Friday afternoon, after school, I sat down with my watercolors. I painted rolling green hills beneath a wide pink and lavender sky, and I scattered tiny wildflowers across the foreground. Across all that open sky, before I knew anyone would challenge the idea two days later, I wrote five words that had settled into my spirit.

A life of expectancy is a life of FAITH.

Sunday’s conversation made me examine those words, but it did not make me erase them. Instead, it made me understand more clearly what they mean. I can release people from the impossible burden of fulfilling all my expectations while holding my own plans loosely before God. At the same time, I can remain fully expectant of the One whose character never changes.

I will keep looking toward the sky and praying audacious prayers. I will keep watching for miracles while trusting God when the answer looks different from the one I imagined. I will keep expecting Him to redeem, restore, provide, strengthen, sustain, and remain faithful. Most of all, I will keep expecting God to be exactly who He says He is.

My God exists without limitations.

And I intend to live like I believe it.

Scripture for Reflection

“But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles.” — Isaiah 40:31, ESV

Challenge

Ask yourself this week where you have placed your expectations. Are you asking people to carry expectations that belong to God, or are you demanding that God fulfill a particular outcome rather than trusting His character? Release the people, surrender the outcome, and turn your expectancy toward the One who never changes. Be content with what is in your hands today while remaining expectant of the God who holds tomorrow.

Prayer

Father, teach me the difference between human expectation and holy expectancy. Help me release people from the burden of fulfilling the plans I have written for them, and forgive me when I try to dictate how You must answer my prayers. Teach me to trust Your character more than my preferred outcome, and let me live content in today’s blessings while keeping my eyes lifted toward You. I believe You are still working, still redeeming, still restoring, and that Jesus is coming again, so let my life reflect that expectancy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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