I had a conversation recently with a good friend and “spiritual mentor” if you will that touched on several things I have really been thinking a lot about lately. In that conversation, I commented that I have never been highly “expectational” in my faith. By that, I did not mean that I am not confident in God’s promise to us but rather that I am not expectational of the experiences I will have here on earth. I think that our experiences here on earth all revolve heavily around the role that the “freewill” we have been blessed with plays in our lives and in the greater world around us.

I don’t have the Biblical knowledge or theological training unfortunately to put my fingertips on a lot of scriptural references to support my thoughts. However, I am going to put these thoughts out here and perhaps those of you smarter and better trained than I (which would be anyone who reads this) will want to weigh in with your thoughts as well.

I believe that God blessed us with freewill and, while I do think it’s highly likely that somehow across the continuum of time and space, in a different dimension that I cannot even begin to imagine, God knows ultimately how everything turns out – who amongst us will spend eternity with Him and who won’t – I do not think that God controls our every action and thought from minute to minute. If that goes for me and for those around me, therefore, it is hard for me to be highly expectational of life on earth.

I think that God brings people into my pathway who face choices of how they respond to the Holy Spirit calling them, just as he blesses me with similar opportunities. Their choice ultimately will depend largely upon where they are in living out the call God places on all our lives but their choice may also be impacted by many other things – the weather, how they are feeling, their attitude, my attitude, and possible third party intervention from those around us. If I always expect those around me to be able to follow through and live out being “Jesus with skin on,” I am going to be disappointed … frequently … because they simply are not always going to fulfill that role. That is why I say I am not highly expectational in my faith. All kinds of garbage is going to happen in life, regardless of my faith, and that is just how it is.

I am, of course, expectational in terms of the faith I have in God that He is always with me and He gives me the power to do what the Holy Spirit calls me to do but that isn’t so much “expectation” as just a knowledge that God truly is always faithful to us, is it?

Expecting others to always reflect Christ’s love is just setting oneself up for disappointment after disappointment, isn’t it? My reward, or my happiness and joy are not to come from those around me in this life but instead from what lies ahead of me. The joy is not in the receiving of blessings but in the service of being there for others.

As a case in point, I wrote recently of my airplane experience sitting next to the woman who was very, very afraid to fly. As soon as she expressed that to me, I knew the Holy Spirit was calling me to respond to her with lovingkindness and try to put her fears to rest. I did my best to respond to that call. Honestly, I don’t know if she felt blessed by my presence. I hope that she did but perhaps she just found me to be annoying. I have that effect on people sometimes. In the end, though, I was truly blessed by the interaction I had with her. I walked away from that plane ride with the encouragement of having seen someone live up to and face her fears in a very courageous way. I was inspired by that in a way that will impact me forever.

Of course, a lot of my experiences in this world are affected by how I see God in the things happening around me. As I have grown deeper in my faith, there is no doubt that my reaction to the world has changed. I am calmer and at far greater peace because I know that God is with me and with us. I still believe that freewill on the part of all of us determines exact circumstances and situations, but ultimately I believe that, in all situations, at some point, we will be able to see where God was at work, where there were individuals responding to the Holy Spirit and being Jesus to others, and where things did end up fitting into a greater plan. In other words, don’t sweat all the “noise” in life; God is there and He is at work despite all the crazy stuff that our freewill as humans causes to happen.

So, while I am not expectational of exact circumstances and situations, I am trusting in God’s faithfulness to and love for His people. That will always prevail. Doing my best to respond to Him and remain confident in His faithfulness to us is all I really need to do.

I will probably have more on this later but feel free, please, to weigh in if you wish!