As the dust starts to settle on the ‘new year’ and reality kicks in, I don’t know where you might find yourself… It may be in a new job, a new city or a new school. You could be coming to terms with living with someone new for the first time – or missing ones that have left you in the year that has gone by. It may feel like nothing has changed at all.
I am definitely getting back into the ‘swing of things’ – nothing much seems to have changed. But before I stop and allow yourself to press the ‘default’ button on life, I have been challenged by an idea:
Am I living life with expectation or in response?
You may think that’s a bit philosophical for a Wednesday, but how you answer it has large repercussions for you and those around you. You see, an expectation emphasizes what is yet to come, while a response highlights what was.
Life as an expectation
When you live life with expectation, you live with hope for a better future. You believe that whatever is happening around you, you will get through and the proverbial sun will shine again. When life is full of expectation, you could be considered a day-dreamer – the temporal reality of your situation frustrates you, and you live with a sense of urgency – not wanting to waste a single moment of time between where you are and where you see yourself going. But unfortunately that means it is also easy to lose appreciation for what you do have and the good things God has given you today. When what you do expect doesn’t come about, it can also result in disillusion that is borderline depressive (or so I have found in my case).
Life as a response
When you live in response to the things around you, you are able to appreciate life and people for who they are. You are able to make decisions that are compelled by the experiences you have had, and there is a general ease around your life. The problem, however, is that you can also end up affected by the bad or uncomfortable situations you find yourself in. You are easily affected by things – even if you don’t take sides. A life in response engages the present and allows you the clarity to make decisions based on fact rather than purely on things not yet attained.
Looking at both perspectives, you may identify with one more than the other, but I am more convinced than ever that a healthy life contains both expectation and response. It is a rhythm that needs to be tempered and continually checked; it is the heartbeat of a progressive soul.
I don’t know about you, but I definitely want 2017 to be a year I can look back on and see how far I have come. If nothing else, I want to be able to say I grew internally. If left to my own devices however, I know that I will not be able to have the clarity or the perspective to do that without a separate, unbiased perspective. God has my whole life mapped from the day I was born till this very second: every possibility, from the random decision to the highest calculation. He also has plans for what my future holds – and he can see it all at once.
As you start your year looking ahead to what could be and engaging with the reality of your everyday, I want to encourage you not to forget God. In the tension of expectation and response you can be easily overthrown – but with the strong hand of God directing and protecting you, I believe 2017 could be a significant season for all of us.
If you want to know how you could engage with God on such a personal level, click on the link below.