Hi Friends,

On Friday night we discovered that the on/off switch on our hot water heater was oddly smashed. After a long walk Saturday morning, I braced myself for a cold shower. It wouldn’t be a frigid shower of course — water in Florida is never really frigid, but it would certainly be much much colder than my preference. But wonder of wonders, the water was hot as ever! Since I expected a cold shower, the hot water was utterly delightful, appreciated far beyond just an ordinary hot shower.

It’s a small thing yet it illustrates that expectations truly matter. They can influence our whole outlook. One thing that I find interesting is that some people expect to understand God. That seems an odd conclusion. If there is a God and He created the heavens and the earth, is it logical to think you would understand Him? Doesn’t it make more sense that Someone of infinite power and wisdom would not be easily understood by a finite little person. The words of Isaiah 55 ring true: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

In addition, the idea that we could understand God completely would mean that trusting and obeying Him would not require faith. But we know that without faith it is impossible to please God. We cannot fully understand Him. But we can trust Him by faith.

Earlier in the same chapter of Isaiah, the Lord tells us, “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live…Seek the Lord while he may found; call on him while he is near.”

Is your expectation that God may be found? That you can call on Him? That He is near? I hope so. I pray your expectation isn’t that you’ll fully understand Him but that you’ll know enough of Him to know He loves you and that he wants to transform all of us into His image.

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.

With Love,

Kristie