Expectation

It seems that expecting God to do work is a bad thing. Whenever I tell people that God specifically told me to wait on Him to provide for all of my needs towards and in Latvia, the response I usually receive is one of restrained shock or confusion. As if missionaries are the ones who are meant to do all of the work to make God’s plans happen. As if people aren’t expecting very much from God at all. I will be frank. This disturbs me. If God (our very present help in trouble, our shepherd, our “easy yoke” guy, etc. ) is not really going to give us His blessing or let us take part in His plans if we don’t do most if not all of the work to make the plans happen, what kind of God is He? Not a very talented God, I would assume. There are many things that could be surmised about a God like that, the least of which being that He is weak and powerless; that He is dependent on us to bring about change and such. Thankfully, however, we know that God is not any of those things—rather the opposite I should say. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Now, does it seem logical to entertain the idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing God who is always everywhere at all times could perhaps, bring about His own plans without help from anyone else? I certainly think it does. At this juncture, I would like to expressly point out that I am by no means condemning anyone for being part of God’s plans. In fact, I don’t believe that we should always just sit back and let Him do everything. As always, I tend to think the best thing to do is to ask Him what He wants of us and then to do whatever that is. To be clear, that is exactly the reason why I am living my life this way. People have hinted to me and also flat out told me that God only helps those who help themselves. The Bible definitely does not say that, and I certainly don’t recall that any of the people whom Jesus healed were made whole because of something they had done. If God only helps those who help themselves, then none of us is truly saved. We might say we are, but we haven’t the ability to help ourselves to be made new so there won’t be any salvation for us if we are the ones who have to help ourselves to it. I dearly hope that what I’m saying here is clear. I do not condemn or advocate any certain kind of approach to mission work or even the business of living out one’s life. I am merely stating that God is so much bigger and more unpredictable than anyone could possibly come close to imagining, and so if someone says that “God works this way and only this way” , or “God simply won’t do this or that” that person is doing a disservice to both him or herself and others. You cannot put the God of the universe into a box. He is far too complex, you know. All of the most complex systems and ideas in the world were created by Him out of nothing. Algebra, calculus, quantum physics, the human mind, the Golden Mean, I could go on. We stand in the presence of the most intelligent, artistic, creative, wise, and enthralling being in the universe on a daily basis. If He were a tangible human being living among us right now, He could very accurately be described as the most interesting and capable man in the world, and that would only be scratching the surface. I think it’s time we took another look at the way we are interacting with Him and what we are choosing to believe about Him. It seems to me that we need to address the level of expectation we have concerning what He can do with and for us.