Dashed Expectations III

Continuing my dashed expectation thread.....(see tips from the harries woman to see the other thread in part I and II) So here is the challenge in dealing with dashed expectations by changing the focus from our expectation to God's expectations...desire for our lives.

I recently had a Sunday school lesson which really challenged me to think about 2010 and where I am going in 2011. We were admonished to look back on all 2010 works/activities and put them in three columns (bad/good/great) Unfortunately, I would have to put some things on the bad list. I think what is more profound, however, was on the good and great listing. Making ourselves completely available to God would fall under the great things. There are so many good things that filled my life this past year but God wants me/us to fill our lives with great things.

The teacher gave the example of a great activity: studying/reading God's Word; a good activity might be watching an old movie. The movie is not necessarily wrong and can be a good thing but it wouldn't fall into the 'great' category. So the admonition: There are only 24 hours in a day that we might fill with so many good things that we don't have time for great things. We all say we want to do great things for God but we have crowded out the possibility of greatness with all our good things.

Humm...what profound words to ponder. Naaman is an example of wanting to do great things for God in his way. Naaman came to God with his fancy clothes & chariots and had decided how God should heal him. How God should do the prophet's work. The challenge: do we come to God with our fancy clothes, hyped cars wanting to do great things for God in our way and call it being available to God? Is that greatness in God's eyes or only in our souped up pride?

We need to approach this next year being available to God....God will be just as available to me/you in 2011 as He was in 2010. It is our choice on how much we want to be available to Him. More thoughts to ponder as we enter this new year. Stay tuned for more on this thread of dashed expectations which now takes a turn toward a charge for the new year!