Heart Tracks - Anticipation

"They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for him and had called together his relatives and close friends to meet Peter." Acts 10:24..... "I just feel like something good is about to happen. I just feel like something good is on its way. He has promised that He'd open all of heaven, and brother it could happen any day." Bill and Gloria Gaither

I think that there's a subtle difference between anticipation and expectation. Our expectations tend to center on what we desire to happen, what we expect God to do in any given situation. Expectations can be easily disappointed. They usually spring from our own hearts. Anticipation, at least as we see it in the Word, is a response to something coming, promised, from the heart of God. We can see this clearly in what happens in Acts 24.

Cornelius, the Roman centurion had a vision where an angel appeared and told him to seek out the apostle Peter in the city of Joppa. Cornelius was responding to what God had told him to do. He neither knew or had met Peter. More, Rome had been centrally involved in the crucifixion of His Lord Christ. It would be very human for Peter to be wary of, even refusing an invitation from a Roman official and officer. Yet Cornelius gathered his entire household together in anticipation of Peter's coming. He anticipated that what God had directed would surely take place. His anticipation of God's faithfulness was greater than what seemed to be the factual realities. Are yours and mine?

We in the church have become jaded and cynical. It has been decades since I first heard the Gaither's "I Just Feel Like Something Good Is About To Happen." It was a very popular song when I first came to Christ, but I think it has faded into a just a nice "feel good" chorus for most, but its lyrics don't have any real place in our reality. We seem more sure of our hopes being dashed and disappointed than we are of them being fulfilled. In truth, we anticipate the former a lot more than the latter. Hope may be the hardest place for most of us to live in. We fear the pain of disappointment, so we don't dare to live in hope. We expect to be disappointed, and because our hope isn't lodged in His heart, we trust in our own sense of things. So we take the advice of our hearts and the world; "Don't get your hopes up," and we don't.

I know there is such a thing as false hope, but hope is never false when it is placed in Him, in His words and promises. Cornelius knew He had heard from God. When he obeyed by sending a messenger to invite Peter, he fully anticipated that Peter would come. So much so that he gathered all his friends and family to welcome him. He didn't fear being embarrassed before them. He saw Peter coming before he came. Simple faith springing out of pure hope. Hope centered on Him.

Alicia Britt Chole said that she too had found herself afraid to allow her hopes in His promises to bear fruit. Then she heard His voice whisper to her heart, "Refuse to let fear of disappointment edit your anticipation or silence your hope." His voice also speaks to us. We need to refuse the voice of fear that knocks on the door of our heart. We need to know that for those who hear, follow, and obey His voice, "something good" is indeed about to happen. Yes, its God who defines good, but we need to be firmly rooted in the belief that He means good for us, and that when He speaks a promise, gives us a clear sense of what He wants, or what He's doing, we can trust, anticipate, that it will come to pass. We, like Cornelius, can gather ourselves to wait in full hope that what He has promised is going to take place.

When was the last time that old Gaither song was being hummed from your heart? Do you live in hopeful anticipation of His displaying His faithfulness in your life? Or, do you so fear disappointment in Him that you live in a grey resignation to things just staying as they are, or indeed, getting worse? Anticipation. What's yours?

Blessings,
Pastor O