Expectations | Hands Wide Open

I don’t tend to start out blog posts with a “Webster’s definition” of the topic at hand, but I really wanted to ground my words in what expectation is and where it happens in our bodies. According to multiple peer-reviewed journals that AI found for me, “expectation is classified as a cognitive process, not an emotion—a prediction or belief about the future.”

Why is this bookish explanation of expectation relevant when we are considering how our expectations show up in our relationship with God? Because it implies that expectations live in our mind, and while other aspects of engaging with God certainly take place in our minds too (i.e. writing beautiful words, being in awe of scientific facts about creation, etc.), we more fully experience God through our minds, and our hearts, bodies, and spirits.

Generally speaking, we approach God with some idea of what we anticipate receiving from God, and our bodies and hearts hold that anticipation. Do we make a request and expect it to be answered, prompting a surge of confidence in our chest or even butterflies of vulnerability in our stomach? Do we offer a prayer and expect it to go unanswered, causing us to feel anxious or disenfranchised?

I’ve had recent seasons of prayer and outreach to God that have been marked by an expectation that God likely won’t really respond, at least in a way that I can recognize or know to be God. Maybe you can relate. That has prompted me to approach God in confusion and uncertainty. These feelings seem important to pay attention to, as they can eventually shape my understanding and perspective of who God is, based on who I expect God to be and how my body holds and settles into that belief. I know, in some deep place of knowing within me, that God is a God of clarity, kindness, and trustworthiness. But sometimes the expectations accompanying my prayer life don’t align with that.

While in those seasons, I’ve wondered – should I try harder to adjust my expectations around who God is and how God interacts with me? But I’m not convinced that’s the ultimate goal. Maybe there is something transformative by simply becoming more aware of what our expectations are and how they translate into feelings, and then sometimes into beliefs?

Will Reagan & the United Pursuit Band sing the following in their song Nothing I Hold On To.

I lean not on my own understanding
My life is in the hands
Of the Maker of Heaven

I give it all to You, God
Trusting that You’ll make
Something beautiful out of me

I will climb this mountain
With my hands wide open

I’m often struck by both the beauty and the somewhat absurdity of the image of climbing a mountain with hands wide open. Having climbed the South Sister (for the first and the last time), I can’t fathom peeling my tightly clenched fingers from my trekking poles or the rock face, even for a moment. This speaks to me about the opportunity to acknowledge and release the emotions tied to our expectations, while continuing to climb. I don’t think there is a guarantee that we won’t stumble and reach down to grab a stray branch or a boulder’s edge, but I do think we are meant to keep climbing.

God is big enough to receive our efforts, acknowledge our expectations, hold our feelings, and to help us keep climbing through it all.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.