Unmet expectations

Hi how are you all? I pray your Christmas was a special time for you and your families. In my country it is summer and that means holiday time at the beach and that’s where I currently am. What is your favourite thing to do at this time of the year?

I just want to go back and reflect on the first Christmas story and look at the unmet expectations that were in people’s lives at that time and how they could have missed it.

An expectation is something that we are longing for, a looking forward and an event. For thousands of years the Jews had been looking for a Saviour. He had been prophesied about since the garden of Eden. Let’s have a look at one of them:

Isaiah7:14- the Lord will give you a sign- the virgin shall conceive a child

I really want to look at this in detail. Mary fell pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She was a virgin. Joseph wanted to divorce her quietly because they were betrothed. What happened to the belief of the promise in Isaiah? Mary was probably shunned the whole way through. She hid for months in her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Where was the promise and the expectation of that promise coming to pass?

Moreover, Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem so they could be counted in the census. Weren’t there other members of Joseph’s family there they could have stayed with? They had big families back then. Why were they relegated to the barn? Where was the promise?

Then Jesus was born. The angels told the shepherds in the field in Luke 2. In verse 17, the shepherds told everyone what happened. Who went and saw the promise? No stories are given in the Bible so maybe no one. Where was their expectation of a saviour? Did they expect Him to come in another way.

In our own lives, God gives us many promises in the Bible. Sometimes we don’t see the answer because our expectation of how it is going to happen is still unmet. Why? Not because we weren’t expecting but because God answered in an unusual way.

Many Jews are still waiting for the Messiah but He has already come. They just didn’t recognise Him. Have a look at our lives, has the Saviour already come but we don’t see Him.

This week ask God to reveal those areas in your life where the Saviour has already come. It is time to get rid of unmet expectations due to not seeing and open our eyes to all the possibilities in God.

Bless you heaps and keep living the life God intended for you.

Karen