Great Expectations.

I find it quite hard to write these days. Whereas before my page seemed to fill itself with adventures, new friends, lessons learned, and exciting stories- these days there are almost too few stories to tell. Of course, I could tell you about the adventures of living with a family of six, the time our shoes got stolen, or the time a giant insect that has yet to be identified crawled its way into my bed and just toppled over and died… right next to my face.

Though it seems those stories are fairly entertaining- I have a feeling those are not the stories many of you have come to expect. Many of you, like myself, have come to expect these grandeur novels about adjusting to Ugandan life, stories of triumph, the cheesy inspirational bumper stickers I have so proudly typed out for you, or the journey of my self-discovery in a country so insanely far from my reality- or what my reality used to be. I actually wish I had a story to tell you, but just like the seasons here in Uganda are somewhat changing yet stagnant in this confusion of intense heat and a little rain… I find myself here in Uganda in my own confusion season.

Whether or not you plan for it, work your butt off to keep them away, or simply think you won’t, when you embark on a crazy God adventure you always, and I mean always, come with expectations. When God plants an idea in our hearts, a seed if you will, we imagine what that seed looks like in a month, six months, two years. Is it a giant willow tree growing insanely tall and doing abundantly more than it’s so brave and naïve beginning? Or does it end like a sunflower in this blazing heat that sits in the sun so long, it inevitably scorches? Does it even blossom? Does the rain ever even come?

Here I am, showing you all my cards… It is really easy to say, and frankly I am guilty of it, that we’re following Jesus with “no expectations”. We read about people in the bible with their triumphant success, and brave stature and assume that they did this, and it almost seems heroic. We assume faith refuses any and all expectations. That’s why when people set off to do crazy things for the Kingdom, and they say they have “no expectations” we applaud them. That is faith at its finest. Or so I thought. What I’ve learned is that this couldn’t be farther from the truth and if we don’t recognize it, if we don’t catch on to this trend… we will all find ourselves trapped in this sea of guilt, shame, and defeat because we thought ourselves to be these faithful servants and somewhere down the line were let down by the expectations we tried so hard to leave behind in our heroic declarations of “faith”. I think about Noah, who had to have been one of the most faith-driven figures the Bible tells of. When God said “do”, he did. No questions asked. But I have to think about the 2^nd or 3^rd day after God told him what to do, when he had to actually put that “yes” into action. Noah, being as human as you and I, must have been thinking to himself, “What is this boat going to look like?”, “Are people going to believe me? Am I going to be the one to convert these sinners?”, “Will people listen to my preaching?”, and in his mind he probably crafted a version of what his story would look like. Not knowing what the future held, what a flood looked like, what rain felt like, if his OWN life was to be spared- his mind probably tried to form a vision. A vision of what he was working toward. Now, of course none of us will know this until he welcomes us into the gates of heaven and we can sit down and drink a Dr. Pepper with him (yeah, there is most definitely going to be Dr. Pepper in heaven), and hear the story from his own lips. So until then, I am just going to assume he had the same anxious imaginative tendencies as myself to further prove my point (and y’all none of that is in the bible, I’m just goin’ with the whole “human” aspect… so please no one call me a “false preacha”): 

We all carry expectations. With everything we do. Our minds are too far advanced to give in to the unknown- we create a known, and we proceed forward with that idea. Which isn’t always bad, but that is where faith comes in. Faith is coming with a vision (an expectation) while understanding that it has a 50/50 chance of unfolding the way we planned or envisioned, sometimes even a 80/20 chance… and still proceeding forward. Faith is saying ‘yes’ knowing that we may succeed, or we could miserably fail. Faith is knowing that if we fail, we failed in the name of Jesus Christ and He will have so perfectly placed His hands at the bottom of that cliff we eagerly stepped off of when we said that word ‘yes’. The trouble is, without faith, when we come with expectations we will inevitably find ourselves in that sea of guilt, shame, and defeat. And once we’re in, it’s a grueling process to emerge from.

All of this to say, sometimes, our expectations are not met, and that’s okay. Some days here I feel like I’m caught in that scene from ‘500 Days of Summer’ where the character Tom finds himself living the reality that is MILES different from the expectations he set. I, despite the amount of times I tried to convince myself that I was ready for ‘anything’, had an image in my head of what my time here would look like. And that’s not to say that my time here hasn’t been worthwhile, I just have to be extremely intentional about finding my purpose in every day and I must accept that some days look like walking to town, treating myself to an Iced Mocha (also to be served in heaven) and letting myself write. The goals I set out to conquer, the vision or expectation I set before coming, are proving more difficult than I originally intended them to be. Not impossible, just difficult. And that’s okay. So far this week I visited my sweet E-girl, read a book, and wrote this blog post. That’s it. And I am learning to be okay with that. Those are my days here. And while I am certain God is moving, and my days will evolve, and my season will change- right now, I am learning to enjoy this confusion season of intense heat and a little rain.

Two days ago, I began reading this amazing book called “Little Bee”. It was a fantastic book, and I recommend it to everyone that is reading this. A beautiful story, really. What I don’t recommend is rushing to get to the end. I found myself so anxious to uncover the story, so impatient to read the ending… that I rushed through all the good parts, all the in-between parts that make the story what it is. I was proud when I finished, until I realized that I missed the richness the book offered and once I arrived at the end, the in-between parts became just that: an in-between. Today I find myself in an in-between stage, an insignificant part that makes up the story. I can rush it, and the ending will come much quicker- or I can wait, be patient, find some joy and the ending will come much sweeter.

And I guess that is the million-dollar question: Do we want to find our ending quicker or sweeter?

I choose sweet.