The Sights and Sounds…
I love the holiday season, with the sights and smells of Thanksgiving and Christmas so closely connected in my home. I enjoy the twinkling lights, the delicious baked goods in the oven, and the warm flickering aromatic candles set around our home. The sight of evergreens, pinecones, bows, and berries adds to the nostalgia of the season. You could say I definitely get caught up in the sights of the holidays. It adds to the joy, peace, and excitement that surrounds the true meaning. That being said, they are not the meaning of the season. The sights, sounds, and smells are additives that create ambiance and additional warmth, but when we truly weigh the truth behind the season, they are the supporting role.
It is easy to get our eyes fixed on what we can see. Our eyes pull our hearts toward the visible and tangible, and then we attach our beliefs and our mindset to those things. We can let what we see and what we “hope” to see become the anchors for our thinking and our actions. Can you relate? You might also agree that often expectations are not met. In fact, expectations can lead to disappointment. What we expect to see or hope not to see often derails our security because we get caught up in the sights that are fixed to human abilities and frailties. Expectations are dependent on what we can do or what others can or can’t do.
What does it look like to be led by expectations or expectancy? That is when I realized this idea relates closely to the verse in the Bible that says we are to “walk by faith and not by sight.” If sight is the additive lending a supporting role to faith (which truly means believing without seeing or confidence without external proof), then we must realize that we have a choice. We can choose faith or choose to align our lives with our external sight. If we position ourselves in faith, then what we experience in our circumstances (including expectations) can be overridden. Faith can change and create newness in what our physical eyes can see.
If our sight is tied to expectations, then we need to pause for a moment to say expectations and expectancy are different. Expectations are what we hope to do or hope others to do. This is different from expectancy, which maintains a posture of hope, possibilities, and faith in a good God who can do above and beyond all that we can ask, think, or imagine.
In a season full of wonder, should we not stay postured in wonder, which can also be described as expectancy? Can we choose expectancy over expectations in a season that can so easily get distracted by gifts, parties, family dynamics, and the hurried? Expectancy allows us to anchor our hope, trust, and confidence in the God who is above it all! Confident hope-filled expectancy is not tied to what man says, what man can do, or what our circumstances show us. Expectations are tied to those things. Expectancy, however, is tied to one truth. It is tied to the fact that God, the Creator of the earth, came as a baby and grew into a King whose mission was to sacrifice His life for us. He died, was raised to life again, and redeemed mankind from our sins. His sacrifice presents possibilities beyond any expectations we could think up!
HE IS the reason for this season. HE IS the hope we anchor our souls to. HE IS the One worth living for. Because of Him, we walk by faith in who HE IS and what HE HAS done for us. Despite the unmet expectations of others, we can choose to walk by faith, posturing our hearts in possibilities and expectancy! Then the sights and sounds of the season become supporting roles to the posture of expectancy we live by. Those sights and sounds are fun additives bringing warmth and joy to the truth that He came, redeemed, and made a way for more!
