Got Expectancy?

Pastor Mark blew the lid off our Western way of thinking two weeks ago.

I am still thinking about how he said our concrete world and our spiritual world are one. How we act when our kids shake the table at dinner and the milk spills over the tops of the cups (and a white tsunami erupts from the blogMommy) affects our life of prayer.

We learn from our first nightmare to deny that other world exists we cannot see with our eyes. Moms and Dads in an effort to keep fear away will say, "that monster is not real." Or they will pitch a "that's nice dear" to a kid aware of angels. A friend of my son's recently told his mom that he had seen Jesus. When his mom asked him what Jesus looked like, he replied, "I don't know if I could tell you, but there sure was a lotta light around him."

Expectancy comes from being that kid who actually knows Jesus is the friend who drops in anytime. This is the milk of life in the Spirit: expecting and receiving. He may throw you into a passing wave or make you so homesick for his house you want glassfuls of what He's serving: wine, water, milk, honeycomb soup.

Pastor Mark noted when you make that turn of wisdom that there is one dimension binding our homesick bones and soaring spirits, hope flows, life comes. You get a reason to press into fleeting longings. You take time back for the first thing you learned as a kid but had to unlearn to get along. We all thought: the light passing out of the corner of your eye, an angel passing, that movement from the wind, you think, is the one you seek and who seeks you. Nah.

I try to exercise expectancy as often as possible, praying as often as possible that the Spirit would completely take over me, so that He can be the Lord of breaking in at any moment. Maybe even breaking Himself to write this blog post.

But what happens when I have to drive to the grocery store? Am I still expectant? Sometimes. But the best part is when God rolls over from my expectancy from different hours and He drops something in front of me. Last week, as I was walking out of Von's, my neighbor from two doors down was diligently picking up pieces of glass and putting them into a plastic grocery sack. He had dropped a big bottle of wine on the asphalt. The red wine was spilling from the center of the parking lot down hill.

Suddenly, I felt as if this moment had a big highlighter being etched in space and time around me. The Spirit was impressing me: notice, notice, notice. I noticed mostly the diligence of my neighbor picking up each teeny shard of glass into his white bag. My neighbor is a retired principal and I recognized the care of a lifetime spilling over into this little moment. It revealled a lot about his character. He was an loving overseer of many children and teachers. Watching, watching, watching out for what could potentially smash a child at school: gopher holes, missing steps, broken door latches.

Later, I couldn't get the wine painting the asphalt out of my mind. Why, Lord, does this mean something to you? It took some time.

Last night, out of the book by Jesus' best friend, I heard it: you want to please my heart, know my Dad, know my Dad
(John 12: 44, 45.) He sent some new wine into the world. It was his best vintage. Part of Himself. His Son. He shattered against the darkness and His blood ran then just as it runs again for you in the Von's parking lot, wondering who would look for the shards of your heart still at this stage of the game.

He speaks.
Hope.
Live.
Expect.
Diligence is Mine, sayeth the Lord.