Love

Bet you thought I was going to write about love, didn't you? Gotcha, I set up your expectations and then crushed them (or maybe relieved them).  Expectations are some of the easiest feelings to create; for example, I can say "At some point in this blog post, you will have an opportunity to earn $1 (I'm broke, Australia took all my money)" and you WILL expect that to be true.  Whether or not I follow through on that is entirely up to me, but whether or not you believe I will follow through, I have created expectations to some degree.

Even a few snowflakes sets expectations in my mind that can be very hard to break.  A few nights ago it snowed here in Oklahoma, and to me that instantly switches my mind into snow day preparation mode (Aka stay up late with friends).  Imagine my disdain and surprise when it turned out that Oklahoma had toughened up since I'd last been here and 1" of snow was no longer enough to cancel school...

Anyways, I think the concept of expectations has been clearly illustrated.  What I've been thinking about lately though is how dangerous expectations can be, but how necessary they are to life.  If we never expect anything to happen, we will never be prepared for anything, but at the same time, if we put too much stock in our expectations, we'll all end up like me on Monday morning; tired and disappointed.  If I have learned anything about the way God works in my life it's that if I expect him to move in a certain way, he won't, but then almost the exact INSTANT I stop trusting in my expectations, He does what I thought he was going to.  That is definitely not universally applicable, it's not like every time I expect anything to happen God throws me a curve ball, I guess just when I assume I know what's going on.

Sort of in relation to my last post, I think the reason it always seems that God brings the blessings when I least expect them is because of his perspective.  The time is probably never right when what I want is for God to give me something instead of JUST God.  I'll rephrase that.  When God sees that something has taken his place as the object of my desire, or the goal I'm working towards, He never lets me have it.  At least that's what I think.  It's always when I give up trying or move on to something else that He gives me what I thought was so important as if to remind me of his importance and what place he should take in my life.

The first person to tell me how old I was when I first watched the Colorado Rockies play gets $1 (unless you're my parents).

So in conclusion (been writing lots of papers lately) what I have realized is that even THOUGHTS war against God for the throne of my heart.  Expectations can become so big that they consume me and I don't leave enough room for God when I SHOULD be taking all of these things I'm hoping or waiting for and giving them to Him.... I'm not very good at that though, I tend to take something that I think God wants me to pursue and let it replace Him, let it take my attention away from him.  It might be a good thing, it might be a neutral thing, but all things that I allow to replace God are nothing but dead weight to me.

That said, it's a GREAT feeling when after letting go of things thought necessary and holding on to God, he eventually gives you some of the things you wanted to begin with...

Hope that made sense... Kind of a stream of consciousness tonight...