Expectation and Anticipation
by Steve Countryman

Having knowledge doesn't make you smart or prove you are wise. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. Knowledge is worthless if it isn't applied! What good is it? So is faith. Where is your faith if it isn't applied? Faith can be found in expectation and anticipation. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." Hearing, in the Bible, means the application of what was heard. Faith applied, by doing or faith by works. When you pray, believing that God can and will do what you ask for, prophesy, to "speak of those things that are not as if they were", the expected results. The anticipation comes after you prophesy. It involves waiting on the Lord for His perfect timing and ways, for He is perfect and His ways are perfect. God doesn't do anything half way or incomplete. God always does everything perfectly and completely. Having your faith, trust, hope and future in God brings completion, fullness, assurance, peace, joy and anticipation of what God can do.

I have experienced a stretching of my expectation. God has been working on me and keeps blowing me away with His blessings. In His working and ways that He performs His miracles in my life while answering prayers. I am learning to trust God more and to raise my level of expectation of what God will do. Not wanting to limit or restrict the working and/or blessings of the Holy Spirit in my life.

Living in the natural, you have the worldly influences around you everyday. It can restrict your faith and limit your heavenly vision. We put expectations on ourselves and others. Sometimes those expectations are not realistic. We then are disappointed and disillusioned when our expectations are not met. Then we lower our expectations to avoid disappointment. Now you serve a God without limits! What do you expect from a God of wonders? You must remove the barriers on your expectations that hinder God's ability to work wonders in your life. Raising your level of expectation of God's ability will open doors of blessings in your life and those you pray for. God who is always working for your good and a God who never fails! Amazing how people will dismiss a blessing from God because it didn't come to them the way they were expecting it to. Then they wonder why God isn't blessing them!?!

You have heard the old saying, "God is in the details", that means that God is also a God of specifics. When you pray, be specific! Praying for God to please help so and so isn't being specific enough. You know before you pray what the details involved are or at least a good portion of them. Pray asking God to answer your prayers for that person based on the specifics that you have. If someone ask you to pray for them but you don't have all of the specifics, you trust God to fill in the blanks. But don't act like those fake Christians who say that they will pray for someone but never do. They are too busy "acting spiritual" to be spirit-filled.

Anticipation is the act of looking forward, the visualization of a future event. Anticipating the end results. Anticipation is taking expectation to a higher level of faith and trust! Expecting what you have prophesied to take place when and where God wants it to. Prophesying doesn't mean you tell God how and when you want Him to answer your prayers. It is by the leading of the Holy Spirit that you prophesy the end result of your prayers. Leave it up to God to make it happen His way. Expecting God will do it! Anticipating, picturing the end result as prophesied in your minds' eye. When God answers prayer He is more than worthy of your praise. It just makes sense that the very next thing to do after you pray in Jesus' name, believe, expect, prophecy the end results is to praise Him for the anticipated manifestation of those results in the natural. Because YOU know that God almighty hears and answers the prayers of the righteous. How God answers your prayers will always blow you away!


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