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• TITLE: Little Faith...Big Faith? | Previous Challenge Entry
  By Bettie Herren
  07/17/13
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Word Count 736                                                                          

Little Faith… Big Faith??

The preacher shouts “Expect a miracle!”  I wonder, “How do you do that?”  Before I left home several people had cautioned, “Don’t get your hopes up.  You do know that most don’t get their healing, don’t you?”

I left my husband alone at home in bed, with everything I could imagine   he might need in reach.  Paralyzed following an automobile accident, he is totally dependent on someone else for most of his needs, and I am normally that someone else.  Usually, we manage just fine. We have a happy, fulfilled life.  I was his nurse during rehabilitation and know how to handle the challenges.  He is an engineer and designs new ways to do things he can’t do the normal way. 

But now, we have a new challenge.  While transferring him from a lounge chair to his wheelchair, I hurt my back.  Unbelievably, I am still functioning through will power, but with a lot of pain.  As I stand and lift my hands to God, I am praying for my husband’s healing. 

Suddenly, I feel something lifting me as if by my arms!  My back is being stretched, and warmth is going up and down my spine. As I experience this, the preacher points to my section of the balcony and says “Someone up there has just been healed of a slipped disc.”  I realize that I can move without pain!  What just happened? 

That was in 1982 and this is 2013.  He has been in heaven for 12 years, but we are still on the earth.  Why was I healed? Why not my husband?  I can’t say I was “expecting” a healing for either of us.  What was I expecting?  Why was I even praying?

When I went to the Strong’s concordance to research the writing prompt word, “expect”, looking for inspiration, revelation came!  The root Hebrew word translated as “expecting, or expectation” carries the idea of being bound by a cord!  The Greek from the New Testament carries the idea of waiting, watching, anticipating.  My expectations are bound to me by a cord.  I am waiting and watching, anticipating their manifestation, because I have faith in God.  God designed the system!  I made the mistake of considering “faith” and “expectation” as synonyms for the same activity.  No!  It doesn’t work that way.  I may have great faith in the truth of God, rely on Christ for my salvation, and be constant in my profession; however with no expectation, nothing in my present existence changes.

As I look back, I realize that I had great faith in God.  I did not have any expectation except that God would deliver us out of our present hardship.  I thought the way out was through my husband’s healing.  In His grace and wisdom, He met my expectation.  (Without going into the details, I now understand the wisdom of His method). But my point is the difference between faith and expectation.  I didn’t know there was a difference.  I thought if you could just somehow get enough faith, maybe through works (pious activity), you could get what you wanted from God.  And when I didn’t see the manifestation, I doubted my faith.  Knowing I doubted my faith was uncomfortable.  So I tried not to be too specific in my prayers…and I had no real expectations.  I was not bound by that cord to any specific future.

I will begin to pay attention to what I expect, and why I expect it.  The world has much good teaching on building your expectations to attain your goals.  That principle has been proven to work.  Why would it work unless it was built into the spiritual laws that govern life here on earth?  As Christians, we go to the promises in the Word and build our expectations.  When those expectations begin to manifest in the words of our mouth, we are getting close to seeing the manifestation in our lives – expecting a miracle.  I have been taught that well, I just missed the class on the difference between faith and expectation.

As we rest in our faith in the goodness of God, we work to strengthen our expectation cords, drawing our specific desires toward manifestation. That cord will pull those desires into our life, whether they are good or bad.  It’s the way life works in this era. 

What are you expecting?