Get Your Hopes Up!: Expect Something Good to Happen to You Every Day (3 page)

Your life will go only as high as the level of your expectations. It’s not that your expectations immediately change the environment or the circumstances around you, but your expectations change the way you react to that environment and those circumstances.
Your expectations change
you
. They cause you to be able to wait for a change in your circumstances with a happy attitude. They cause you to be a bold, confident, joy-filled believer who trusts that God has a great plan for your life.

Here’s a simple story I came across that demonstrates the joy that comes with great expectations:

I want to encourage you to raise your level of expectation today. It doesn’t matter what the situation looks like around you; God is greater than any obstacle you may be facing. Don’t assume that where you’ve been, or where you are, is as good as it gets. Don’t believe that your history is your destiny. Choose, instead, to believe God is going to do something even better in your life. Jesus is asking “What do you want Me to do for you?” That’s a pretty powerful question, so go ahead and get your hopes up. There must be a pony around here somewhere!

Of all the timeless games children play, follow the leader is perhaps the most common. Whether it’s in preschool, elementary school, or just playing with friends at the park, at some point in time, every child has joined a line of peers and gone about the playful task of following the leader. Do you remember playing? Do you remember the challenge of walking in the footsteps of the person in front of you, even as they walked in the footsteps of the person in front of them? Through the tunnel, across the monkey bars, up the ladder, down the slide: All around the playground you went.

One of the things I remember most about follow the leader is that the enjoyment of the game was directly linked to the ability of the leader. If we had a leader with little speed, no creativity, or a poor sense of direction, the game fell apart quickly—kids would lose interest and go find something else to play. Similarly,
if we had a leader who was too fast, overly acrobatic, or bossy and demanding, the game wouldn’t last very long because no one could keep up. In order for the game to be a success, we had to have the right leader—a leader who moved at the perfect pace, kept things interesting, and took us somewhere we wanted to go.

Leadership is key. This is a truth that is reinforced all through childhood, into adolescence, and even as we enter the “adult world.” If you had a knowledgeable coach, you probably had a pretty successful team. If you were fortunate enough to get a motivated and inspiring teacher, you probably learned more about a particular subject than you would have otherwise. If your boss challenged you to be your best and put you in a position to succeed, you probably enjoyed your job and performed well at the tasks assigned to you. How much you enjoy an experience, and the level of success you achieve, is directly linked to whom you choose to follow.

What is true on the playground, at the ball field, in the classroom, and around the conference room table is true in the deeper areas of your life as well—leadership is still key. Who or what you choose to follow will determine how much you enjoy your life. But I’m not talking about following a boss, a teacher, or a parent; I’m talking about a bigger decision: the choice to follow God and His plan for your life.

If you go through life with your own agenda—trying to figure everything out, trying to follow your own plan—chances are you’re going to be miserable and unhappy. It’s not that your plan is inherently bad; it’s just that God’s plan is immeasurably better.

Anytime you settle for your plan instead of submitting to God’s plan, you are settling for second best. Also, a great deal of stress comes with trying to force your own plan to work. As soon as you run
into an obstacle—the school denies your application, a business endeavor fails, the person you hoped to marry rejects you, the house doesn’t sell—the pressure builds because you feel you have to fix the problem in your own strength. If you’re the leader, it’s easy to lose hope, because you’re well aware of your own flaws, failures, and limitations.

But if you want to live a life full of hope, the best thing you can do is turn the leadership role over to God. Let Him be the leader, and decide to follow Him wholeheartedly, trusting that He has a great plan and He is working that plan to perfection. Stop reading for a few minutes and ask yourself:
Am I aggressively following God, or am I asking God to follow me?
In God, you find a leader who moves at the perfect pace and keeps things interesting, and although He may take you a few places you’d rather not go, you will miraculously end up in the right place at the right time. Waiting on God doesn’t mean you sit around and do nothing. In fact, quite the opposite is true. You still plan for the future, and you still work diligently to succeed at the tasks in front of you, but you do those things after you have spent time with God, asking for His guidance and direction. And when you do make plans, you hold on to those plans loosely. You go through each day with an attitude that says
Lord, I trust that You have a plan for my life. Point me in the direction You want me to go. Close any doors that are not part of Your plan, and open every door of opportunity You want me to enter. Lead and guide me today and every day
.

When things go wrong and circumstances get tough, people who are following God’s lead don’t panic. They believe that He will use any and every situation—good or bad—to bring about His plan and purposes. We all make mistakes and we learn a lot of lessons, but if we stay filled with hope, we can enjoy the journey. We may make a few detours that we were not planning for, but God’s purposes will win out in the end.

It’s easier to have high hopes for your spiritual growth, your marriage, your health, your children, your relationships, your job, and your finances when you’ve made God the leader and you trust that He has a great plan for your life. Believing that God has a purpose for your life, and choosing to follow His guidance to see that purpose fulfilled, is a total exercise in trust.

It’s a lot like the “trust fall” you’ve probably seen people demonstrate at one time or another. In the trust fall, one person allows himself to be vulnerable, falling backward with no net to catch him and no padding to break his fall, while another person stands behind him promising to catch him before he hits the ground. When you say, “Lord, I choose to follow Your lead. I believe Your plan is infinitely better than my plan could ever be,” it’s a lot like trusting someone will catch you. But there is a major difference: God does more than just catch you; God catches you and then takes you higher than you were before.

Learning to trust God completely is something I’ve had to learn over time and am still learning daily. I used to have a habit of trusting only myself. I formed this habit after years of trying to trust people, only to end up disappointed and hurt. I would then decide to never trust anyone again. These painful experiences caused me to believe
If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. If you don’t ask anybody for anything or open your heart to them, they can’t hurt you
. But this mind-set was unhealthy, and it did more than keep me from trusting people—it kept me from trusting God. It was a bad habit I needed the Lord’s help to break.

The Word of God is very clear about trusting the Lord rather than trusting in ourselves. Proverbs 3:5–6 say:

To “trust in” God is simply to believe that He loves you, He’s good, He has the power to help you, He wants to help you, and He
will
help you. Many times we trust everyone
except
God, or we trust everyone
before
we trust God. We trust our friends, the bank, the stock market, the government, or our own talents and abilities more than we trust God and His Word. Did you ever hear anyone say “I’ve done everything I know to do, but none of it is working; I guess there is nothing I can do now but pray”? Most of us have said that, and it is a revealing statement. It is another way of saying “I’ve tried to help myself and failed, I’ve tried other people and they failed, nothing I do is working, so I guess I have no recourse but to try to trust God!”

Prayer should be our first line of defense in any battle, never a last-ditch effort after all else has failed.

God wants us to put Him first in our lives. He wants us to put our confidence and trust in Him… all the time… in everything.

He wants us to hope in Him, to have faith in Him, because when we do, we will not live disappointed, fruitless lives. He will lead us into the overcoming, abundant, joy-filled life Jesus died to give us. Remember the great song that says “My hope is built on nothing less but Jesus Christ, my righteousness”?
Put all your hope in God and get ready for the most exciting journey you can imagine.

If you have decided to follow the Leader (Jesus), Romans 8:1 says that, as believers, we can “live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.” One of the ways you can tell if you are following the flesh (your own plan) instead of the Spirit (God’s plan) is that you have no peace and you’re struggling. If you’re thinking about doing something but you have no peace about it, just don’t do it.

For example: You may be looking for a job, but the only offer you’ve been given in your field of expertise is across the country. But if you haven’t prayed about it, and you’re making this decision without consulting God, convincing yourself you’ve got to move across the country because this could be your only job offer, you might be setting yourself up for years of misery. If your entire family doesn’t want to go and your decision to go is causing strife and turmoil, you should wait and seek God for more clear direction.

Here’s the thing: If your mind is troubled and you have no peace, and your decision is causing trouble, don’t do it! Very often we try to talk ourselves into something we don’t have any peace about, and that is an open invitation to trouble. In the example above, the reasoning would go something like this: “Well, I really don’t want to move and my family is against it, and the job isn’t what I was looking for, but it might be okay. It’s the best offer I’ve had. I’m getting tired of waiting.” Beware of this sort of reasoning, and no matter how impatient you feel, if you don’t have peace about the move, you’re better off waiting until God brings a better opportunity your way.

I realize you need to financially support yourself and your family, but you would be better off to take any kind of job locally
while waiting for the perfect job than to make a cross-country move you have no peace about. Let peace be the umpire in your life, deciding with finality every question that arises in your mind (see Colossians 3:15).

Whatever the situation is, the same principle remains true. Whether it’s finding a spouse, choosing a church, deciding on a purchase, establishing healthy boundaries in relationships, the list could go on. Always make it your goal to follow the wisdom and peace of God.

When you’re not sure what decision to make—when you’re not positive if you’re following your own desires or God’s direction—look to the umpire. Let peace make the call!

Even when you’ve decided to follow God’s leading in your life, there are going to be times when you make mistakes. Don’t be discouraged when that happens; it is all part of learning! The disciples made mistakes when they were following Jesus. You don’t ever have to be ashamed to back out of doing something you thought was God once you realize it’s not. You can simply say, “I’ve made a mistake,” and move on. I’ve missed God’s perfect plan plenty of times, and you will too. Actually, that’s one of the ways we learn how to hear from God correctly. Sometimes you will need to step out and try something to find out whether or not it’s really God. If you have done all you can to discover God’s will in your situation and you have no clear direction, then do what is in your heart and trust that God will lead you as you go. I often say that nobody can drive a parked car, not even God. If we have our lives in park, we may need to put them in drive and at least make a move in some direction. We often only find out as we step out!