Letting Go of the Expected

“When you release expectations you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be.” - Mandy Hale

Do you ever pray with an expectation? I don’t mean an expectation of an answer, but an expectation of how your answer will arrive. Say you pray for more money in your bank account. You apply for that promotion, pick up a side gig, or you are looking to your old Great Aunt May to leave you something. You are even just hoping a bag of forgotten money is found on your route home. Anything. In the meantime you have been offered a job. It comes with more pay which is great, but it looks like it might be a stressful job. You don’t want to take it because who wants to add stress, right? But none of your other plans are falling through. But yet here’s this job. Have you thought it could be God’s answer? It didn’t come the way you hoped or expected but it’s still the answer. 

First, this doesn’t mean that God messed up on answering your prayer. Picture it as a father giving his child fruit when they asked for desert. We are not excited for it, but this is something that will benefit us. However, in our small child-like minds we don’t understand how. Having the treat just this one time won’t kill us, right? So why can’t we just have that slice of cake? But God wants better for us. He wants us to receive all of our nutrients. Our impatience or weak willpower will improve from this job, as will our bank account. As parents we see the bigger picture the child cannot see nor understand. That is why we need to trust God in the calm and the crazy. We cannot get stuck on the unexpected. Or should I say the “expected”. We expected to be with someone else. We expected to be richer. We expected to be smarter. We expected to be further. We expected to be married. We expected to be parents. Looking around no one really expects to be right where we are.

This hiccup can be stalling for our growth. We can begin to blame ourselves for things we should have done differently. We can begin to wonder how and why. We can begin to feel sad about the reality of life. But if you could only see the bigger picture. Our viewpoint is very limited.

We need to believe that God has a plan, because He does, and that plan is very good.

In fact that plan is great. But we must let go of our expectations. We don’t know where life is going to bring us. When we pray, expect answers but understand it could go any way. God has the final say. Maybe our prayer is for our worst nightmare not to happen but it does. He wants you to face your fear. Maybe your prayer is to go higher and further but you end up in a different career path completely. Maybe he sees you doing bigger and better here. Maybe you wanted children and instead experience miscarriages. There are some things we will never get answers for. Some pains we will never understand. Some losses we will never come to grips with. But please don’t give up and lose hope in God or in your life story. He has good plans for you. Plans to prosper you not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) 

But we have to keep moving forward and upward. To do that, we need to let go. Be open to what God is doing in your life that’s different and not what we thought it would be, or else we will find ourselves jumping in trying to control the situation that is not ours to control. Adding stress and problems that were not part of the plan. He’s got you and He won’t let go. But you need to so that you can relax and enjoy the ride.