My youngest has reached the age of independence. Well, he likes to think he’s independent. He doesn’t want help in the shower anymore and thinks he can bathe himself with no problem. So, the other night he was plain insistent, so I said, “Fine. You go take a shower all alone.” Mr. Bigshot strutted towards the bathroom, grinning the whole way. He could do it all by himself.
Next thing I know, I hear a blood curdling scream, so I came running into the bathroom thinking he had hurt himself. When I pulled back the curtain, he looked like Spiderman up in the back corner of the bathtub. The shower head was shooting ice cold water and he was shivering. “You can do it all by yourself, huh?”
Smiling, but still frozen on the edge of the tub, he sweetly pleaded, “I can wash me. But can you fix the water? It’s fuh-fuh-freeeeezinggg!” I snickered as I rescued Mr. Bigshot.
As my overzealous five-year-old learned, what we expect doesn’t always happen. He expected the water to automatically be the right temperature, but instead he was completely shocked because he didn’t mix the hot water with the cold.
His little lesson in expectations resonated with me this week. I made some big decisions and let some things go that have been a part of my life for 10 years. New directions and new doors are opening, and I need to be available to say yes when the opportunities present themselves. But those opportunities aren’t here yet. I’m letting go in faith. And honestly, when I let go, I thought I would get a call the next day saying it was time to step out in a new direction. But no such call has happened. I practically stared a hole in my phone this week expecting to hear something.
But trusting in my expectations let me down and left me in a funk. I second guessed myself all week as a result of leaning on my expectations instead of trusting the reasoning. I know for a fact God is stirring a new direction in my heart and letting go means telling him yes. Even if I have to wait a year, trusting in him is better than leaning on my expectations any day. Eventually the waiting will make sense. The timing will be perfect. And my life will be wide open so my yes can be an extra big one.
What we expect doesn’t always happen. And it sure doesn’t happen in our timing. Sometimes we just need to do it and not expect immediate results. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. We do because it will bring honor to God. We do it because we know if we don’t, we can never move forward wholeheartedly. Don’t get shocked by the cold water this week that you expected to be hot. Let your expectations go and just make decisions for the right reasons.
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