Expecting Big Things?

‎"How often we expect big things from God without preparing for big things from him"
Beth Moore.

Before quoting someone, I want to know more about them, so I went looking for Beth Moore and found her at Living Proof Ministries.  She writes that she came to love God’s word in a Bible Doctrines class. I can understand that.  Though I’ve read and memorized from the Bible since a pre-teen, not until I began studying God’s word did it come to mean my life.

Setting our expectations from God often confines His work, His will in our lives.  If we look upon Him as someone to call upon when we’re in trouble, we've limited God to a fixer-upper.  We won’t be listening for Him any other time.  We won’t be seeking His input on other things in our lives.

It is not easy to look to Him first.  We’ve been taught to take care of ourselves, to be able to stand up against all odds and overcome.  We are taught to look for the good in people and help them grow in their own individual ways, taking different paths, learning on their own. That’s good advice, but I prefer not to do it alone.

Sometimes it appears to me as though we’ve been encouraged to fight our way through heavy jungle growth with a machete, overcoming but also overlooking a path God laid through it.  It is not because of that path’s ease that we should choose it, but for the best use of time, material and energy.

Accepting that path establishes our expectations that God will provide the clearing to accomplish His will.  We come to Him as the beggar who spoke to Peter and John:

And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. (Acts 3:5 KJV)

His expectations were correct, he would receive something – something he never had before:

Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. (Acts 3:6-8 KJV)

Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries’ Our Mission page closes with a scene of people praising God.  That scene will include me, because I expect Him to give such as He has, and He has salvation:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9-10 KJV)