What are you looking forward to this Christmas? Christmas is a time of expectancy.
Children get this sense of expectancy better than anyone else. Every morning my kids ask me how many more days till Christmas. They can’t wait to find out what will be under the tree!
Truthfully, I can’t wait either! I want them to open the presents I bought for them. I can’t wait to see their excitement and joy.
As adults Christmas is full of expectancy too! Not about gifts but about memories. You’re excited about your family all being together again under one roof. You can’t wait for your kids at college to come back home. Maybe you’re looking forward to a new family portrait.
You’ve already started envisioning how you are going to make memories this Christmas…baking cookies just like you did with your mom, building a snowman before they get to middle school and are too cool to want to play in the snow. Maybe you’re going to cut down your own tree or make gingerbread houses. Christmas is full of expectancy.
Do you know what the Bible calls joy-filled expectancy?
Faith.
We are expecting God to do something good…even though it might seem impossible.
Guess what we lose the older we get? Joy-filled expectancy. We lose the sense that the future will be merry and bright. We don’t live with hope and joy, we live with fear and doubt.
This Christmas I want you to get back that joy and hope.
I’m sure you are waiting on something, not something under a tree…but for something you would trade everything the world sells for. Maybe you’re waiting for someone to change, or to find out if you’ll have a job in the New Year, or on a doctor’s report, or waiting to see if your marriage will make it.
This Christmas I want you to try something different. I want you to look at whatever you’re facing not with fear and worry but with hopeful expectancy.
David’s prayer is, “God here is what’s going on and I’m just giving it to you because I can’t do anything about it and I can’t wait to see what you are going to do!”
Why don’t we live like that? Why don’t we live with hopeful expectancy when we are faced with difficult situations?
I think it’s because we aren’t convinced God really does love us. If we really believed God loved us what would we be so worried about? Why would we be anxious about the future?
I also think we don’t live with joy-filled expectancy because we’ve predefined the outcome. We believe that if God doesn’t give us the gift we want, if he doesn’t fix the situation with the solution we want, then life will be a huge disappointment.
Have you ever had a child or maybe it was you have all their hopes pinned on one toy or gift? “If I don’t get this…Christmas will be ruined!”
We had a couple of Christmas’ like that in our house. Our kids placed all their hopes and dreams on a puppy. We told them over and over…you’re not getting a puppy. What else do you want? There was no reasoning with them. My wife was so upset about it that she even got shingles over it…true story!
But then our kids pulled the trump card. “Fine, Dad, if you won’t get us a puppy Santa will!” I tried to reason with them that Santa doesn’t bring puppies…they’re too energetic, they will jump out of the sleigh and who wants to wake up on Christmas morning and see splattered puppies on their car or driveway? They thought about it for a little while and then said, “Well why did Santa bring _____ a puppy?” They started naming people in our church! We took them off our Christmas card list.
They didn’t get a puppy for 3 Christmases. Needless to say, our kids were disappointed. (We just got one this year.)
As adults we think we’re more mature, but we really aren’t. God, if you don’t do this I won’t be happy. God, if you don’t give me this result this outcome, I won’t be happy. I will pout and be the Grinch for the rest of my life.
It’s the difference between EXPECTATIONS vs. EXPECTANTLY
Expectations…We predefined what God can do. This and only this is what I want. I get to decide
Expectantly…God the choice is yours and I believe it’s a good one. I know you love me and you’ll take care of me.
The Real World
Here is what “expectantly” sounds like in the real world…
I’m waiting to find out if I’ll have a job in the new year and I can’t wait to see what God is going to do! Maybe I’ll stay here, if not God wants me to move to a new place because he has new people I need to meet and love on.
That’s joy-filled faith!
Which do you think would be a better example to the people around you:
My job is on the line…I don’t know what I’m going to do…I’m so depressed…the future is so bleak.
OR
If I don’t get to keep my job…I wonder what city God has for me next? I hope it’s someplace warm! God, I’m excited about the future! I feel like Christmas waiting to see what God is going to do!
I’m sure people at work will wonder if you’ve been visiting a Vermont smoke shop because you seem a little too relaxed about losing your job.
Two Christmases ago we were trying to get into a facility and the day before Christmas Eve I found out we were $150,000 in the hole on the project. We didn’t have money to cover the $90,000 worth of bills we had already accumulated not to mention the $60,000 we needed to finish. It was the Christmas present every pastor wants. My message for the next day was already prepared and it was called “Having Joy Despite Your Circumstances.” God is so mean!
The biggest thing I could imagine…my biggest hope…was maybe God could help us get a loan.
I wish I could tell you my attitude was… “Boy I can’t wait to see how God is going to come through on this one! God, I’m just waiting with joy-filled expectancy!” But I wasn’t. I think I was more in a state of shock. Honestly, it took all the faith I had to just get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other.
But God’s idea wasn’t to loan us the money…His idea was to gift us the money! I look back and think I wasted that Christmas worried about nothing. I don’t want you to do the same thing.
I’m not sure what you’re facing this Christmas but what if instead of facing it with worry and fear you faced it with joy-filled faith. What if you said, “God I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do!” What if you started this Christmas season not from a place of anxiety but from a place of hope-filled anticipation?
What is God going to do in my family? Will this be the Christmas my son comes to church with me?
The Christmas story is full of people waiting expectantly on God.
The Wise Men following a star from a far. What is this star? Where is it leading us? What will we find?
The Shepherds…let us go and see this baby lying in a manger. The angels had filled them with so much hope-filled anticipation about what they would find and it was just like the angels had said.
What would it look like for you to start this Christmas season off like that?
A lot of people missed the very first Christmas because of their expectations. They had predefined ideas of what the Messiah would be like. They expected the Messiah to be born in a palace or he would set the world right through violence. They didn’t expect him to come as a baby born to poor, teenage refugees in a cave. Don’t box God in. Don’t predefine what God can and can’t do. You’ll miss all that God has for you this Christmas.
Look at the future with expectancy because God loves you and does the impossible in unexpected ways. God, I can’t wait to see what you are going to do!
