WRAPPING YOUR BRAIN AROUND ALTERNATIVE THINKING

While listening to the latest God Journey Podcast Wayne shared something about expectations that he had just heard someone say on a radio program he was listening to. "Expectations are remembrances of things we haven't had yet." I began to laugh with joy when I heard Wayne's and Brad's discussion about the profundity of that statement. Three years ago I would have been left with responding to such a statement with....WHATEVER!!!!!

I've had such a transformation in my level of peace and joy since coming to a realization a few years ago that my life was being governed by expectations that I had of myself, my wife, my children, my friends, my clients, and everyone else beyond those I just mentioned. Religion had even trained me to place expectations on God...the one who created the cosmos. Today it all just seems so absurd.

During the season that the Spirit began to shake many dangerous mistaken notions that were jerking me around and had made me a very unhealthy/unsafe person for others to be around, I remember so clearly the difficulty I had in trying to wrap my brain around the idea that it might be a good idea for me to let go of all of my expectations. All I could think of was how it seemed so irresponsible. Which led to another rug being pulled from under me. I was in serious need of letting go of the Responsibility paradigm also. This turned out to be another difficult thing to wrap my brain around.

I was a year into this wrestling match with my brain (and the way I had previously lived) when a friend shared these words with me. The problems created by expectations had already began to click...the difficulties created on the responsibility front began to open up to me a few months later.

Here is part of the issue at stake here, and it is true for both the word 'responsibility' and the word 'expectation'. Both words regress to a static existence rather than an active one. What I mean is that they exist with no reference to time, like the Law...they hang in space, outside of yourself, impinging their heavy presence on your life and dictating choices and actions from 'outside' you. The work of the Spirit is from the inside and continues to be from the inside. It is also moment by moment, and focuses on the present tense. (Having begun in the Spirit, are you now going to be perfected by the flesh?) But what is anticipated by expectancy and by an ability to respond...is a living dynamic relationship in which you hear the voice of Jesus speaking. It is the Word of God that set you free (not as in Scripture, but as in Jesus - not that Scripture may be the avenue through which you are nudged, but not necessarily or essentially). When we are not used to living by His life in us, or hearing His voice, it is easy to revert to something 'outside' by which we can base our performance on, forgetting that apart from Him we can do 'nothing' (no matter how righteous it looks), and whatever is not of 'faith' - this inward, living union - is sin (no matter how righteous it looks).

Today this all makes sense because my eyes were opened and I was able to "see" the old law/expectation/responsibility/contol paradigm for what it is. The paradigm of love and grace is of another realm and the evidence/fruit are proof enough for me to continue on the path these changes set me out on even when people look at me askance as if I have lost my mind. Losing the ol' mind turns out to be a good thing :)

Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear
The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear
Oh, but a change of heart comes slow

It's not a hill it's a mountain
when you start out the climb