How To Stay Expectant

In The Story of With (if you missed yesterday’s reading, start here), the first vial Mia must fill is the one labeled Expectant. It’s where we must begin as well. Because before we can experience a life of expectancy, we have to release our expectations.

There is an ocean of difference between expectations and expectancy. Expectations indicate a sense of what should be. It is how we expect things to go, often veering into entitlement. If circumstances don’t go the way we want, we feel cheated, irritated, or even offended. It’s not fair. Change—especially change we didn’t ask for—is viewed as an interruption to our plans. Many of us have carried unmet expectations for years that we need to let go of.

Staying expectant is the opposite. It reflects anticipation for what’s to come. It is being open to what does happen regardless of what you think should happen. Life is not meant to be something we control but something we experience.

God draws us into the deep to make us deeper. The shallow stunts our ability to learn to ride bigger waves. That’s why God continually calls his sons and daughters to graduate from the baby pool and be wave riders in uncharted water. The kind we can only navigate with him.

The Expectant vial is required at the first level of Mia’s journey because she is entering a Story unlike any she has experienced. She is literally in over her head. The only possible way forward is to stay with God…actively waiting and expectant for the waves he will provide.

This daily message in a bottle is a real-life version of the four vials featured in The Story of With, providing encouragement to pursue our creativity with God. Your financial support makes this crowd-funded initiative possible. Would you consider giving a donation today via PAYPAL (or by check to Allen Arnold at PO Box 62841, Colorado Springs, CO 80962)? Every bit helps!

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