According to my bathroom scale, my slim 5’8 body now weighs 156 lbs. I know you may be wondering where I am going with this but just stay with me.
Recently, I came across three things on Facebook:
- A post I had made in 2010 declaring I would put on at least 10 lbs. for the summer. At the time I weighed about 120 lbs.
- A friend’s response to a picture I posted in 2012, asking if they weren’t feeding me enough.
- A 2011 picture I had taken with my friend at the beach. I was super skinny.
My 2010 self could have never imagined that I would reach my 2020 weight as she prayed just for a little bump on the scale. In fact, I didn’t even notice my weight gain until other persons pointed it out to me. As my friend once said “God doesn’t bless in little measures. He likes to go exceedingly above all we could ask for.” The Big Guy cranked it up! I never thought I would see the day when I exercised to keep slender and toned! The truth is my 2010 self had not prepared herself to recognize the blessing when it is bestowed.
Operate with an air of expectation…Prepare.
If God gave you what you asked for would you recognize it? How would you know you have received it? Let’s go bible for a bit.
When Abraham decided that he wanted a wife for Isaac, he sent out his servant with specific instructions. When the servant reaches his master’s homeland, he prays to God for guidance.
“O Lord, God of my master, Abraham,” he prayed. “Please give me success today, and show unfailing love to my master, Abraham. See, I am standing here beside this spring, and the young women of the town are coming out to draw water. This is my request. I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug.’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels, too!’—let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife. This is how I will know that you have shown unfailing love to my master.” – Genesis 24:12-14
In essence, he stipulates conditions that became the basis on which he would know that God answered his prayer. He prepared himself to recognize the blessing. And so, when he meets Rebekah, he knows without a doubt that he found the one that his master had sent him for and the one God intended for Isaac.
The Point? I assure you there is one… 🙂
A key part of “operating with expectation” is “being prepared to recognize what you are expecting. Too often we miss the blessings that God intends for us because we did not prepare to recognize it. Oftentimes, some of us (myself included) wouldn’t recognize it even if God’s answer to our prayer hit us in the face. And that is sad! Because of all the promise fulfillment we end up missing out on, we are oftentimes left wondering why God hasn’t answered us. The problem is not that He didn’t answer. The problem is that we missed it because we were not prepared to recognize it.
Don’t let God’s answer to your prayer have to poke you in the eye for you to recognize it. Don’t let someone else have to highlight the existence of the blessing, you prayed for, in your life. When we pray, may our prayer not only be for what we desire but also for “God to give us vision and wisdom” to recognize when what we prayed for is bestowed. I don’t want to see any more of us missing the existence of our blessings because we did not prepare to recognize it. Operate with an air of expectations…prepare. May God give you the vision to see things like He does as you look to Him.
Awesome News!
Discovering by Design is heading to the YouVersion Bible app. Our first plan will use the life of Joseph, as a guide, to focus on practices to employ on the path to achieving purpose. More details will follow in upcoming weeks. I am totally psyched! Hoot hoot! 🙂
A Quick Side Note: If you have kids, be sure to check out the YouVersion Bible app for kids and TC Kidz. It has some incredible content and is a fabulous way to train up a child in the way he/she should grow! See what I did there? 🙂
