The Power of Expectancy

Often while we are at the dinner table, I will glance out the front picture window of our house when there is movement on the street.  We live on a busy street, so I am always gazing out there, especially when we are expecting company.  The kids get frustrated, because they all look out, too, trying to figure out what is so attention-getting out there.  Sometimes it is nothing at all, but it is always a little joke between us.  "Mom!  Why are you looking out there?!!!"
I read a book recently by Beth Moore (and yes, I love all the stuff she does, and I hope she will google her name and find this here and ask me out to coffee!), called Get Out of That Pit, that talks about the power of expectancy in our deliverance.  She makes a powerful defense for the idea that once we have done all we can--repented of anything we have brought on ourselves, committed ourselves to the pit-extraction process--we must add to that an expectancy that God is going to show up.  Metaphorically speaking, we are lifting up our face, expecting God to walk in to the situation any minute now. 

There is something so powerful in the expectancy that God is going to move.  The people that I have known who are the most powerful in the things of the Spirit are like this.  They are always looking for the miraculous.  I always find it incredibly refreshing to be in the presence of a person like that.  No matter what happens, they find comfort in placing their faith firmly in the court that God WILL move!  Sometimes I even giggle, finding their perspective such a different way of seeing something than what I have been looking at--but my heart says that they are closer to the truth than my cynical perspective.
I am learning that sometimes we are the biggest obstacle to our own salvation.  We keep snatching things out of God's hands, all the while our words saying that we leave it all to Him, while we have a death grip on the matter.  We are like a two-year-old who says, "Yes, Daddy, I will put my blanket away"," all the while clinging to it and hoping he won't notice.  But He does.  And He doesn't call it surrender when it is still clutched in our hands.
There are so many "blankies" we need to leave on the altar.  The salvation of a spouse.  The drug addiction of a child.  Horribly difficult things to surrender.  And yet, if we do in fact take our hands off of it (quit nagging, quit rescuing)--something amazing can happen.  We make space for a rescue.  Our attention is all on God--because we have quit making it about what I can do to change the situation, and put all our eggs in the God basket.  Something in our heart struggles to leave it there--the illusion of control. "Oh, God!!  I call out to You!  Come to rescue!  Come help!!!!" When we get out of the way, and He is the only hope--there are some glorious things that can happen.  Intercession takes center stage in the matter--and our eyes are lifted up.  We are looking out the window, waiting for our salvation.  Would you disappoint your child who is trusting you like that?  I think God finds it irresistible.