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Have I fully surrendered all my life to God?  Growing up, I often heard a version of, “If you are fully surrendered to God, you will become a missionary or a pastor.”  But how about Hosea? He was fully surrendered to God, and he became the husband of a prostitute!

Like you, I have my own expectations on how life should be progressing. And when those expectations are being met, that is when I am willing to “follow” God, because he is leading me where I want to go.  But I find it is when his leading and my expectation don’t match, that obeying his commands, treating others with love, and having a joyful heart all go out the window.

I remember talking with someone from our church about expectations, and they said, “The biblical word for expectations is hopes.” When I have expectations on how my life should be, or how my day should be, or any other detail of my life, I have established something I am hoping in.  And thus, when I do not receive it, I stop obeying God because he hasn’t fulfilled my desires.  It often seems he has left his side of the bargain unfulfilled, shattering my hopes.  When I discover this, I must quickly run to Scripture and see if what I am holding God to is what he has actually promised.

I have often found that false hope is revealed in the everyday activities of my life.  

I get mad. Why?  I was hoping to be left alone.  

I’m being lazy and shirking my responsibilities. Why?  I was hoping to relax.  

I have been an unpleasant person to be around.  Why?  I was hoping to be at a different stage in life right now.

A lot of my sin comes from my wrong hopes because I am not actually fully surrendered to where God wants to lead me; which starts by being surrendered where he has me.  I am not hoping in him and in him alone.  When this happens, I must repent of holding so tightly to those hopes/desires and give them over to him.

As application, I am going to very simply take all of it to God in prayer.  If I am praying every desire and hope while also praying “thy will be done”, it keeps me from having a tight fist and actually draws me closer to my Father.  I have observed in my life that when I am holding tightly to my desires, fighting to achieve them, the one thing I haven’t been doing for so long is praying.  Will you pray with me and for me?